Federal prosecutors in New Jersey have charged a black former Marine with threatening the mass-murder of whites.
Joshua Cobb, 23, of Trenton, was arrested on May 10 after he confessed to FBI agents last month that he posted the threats to multiple social-media accounts. The agents also found material on his iPhone, alleges the 11-page criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in New Jersey.
Cobb’s social-media posts suggest that he might be severely mentally ill and possibly schizophrenic.
The Threats
Cobb first threatened the mass-murder of whites on December 17, 2023, prosecutors allege, when he posted the following to an unnamed social-media platform:
I want to cause mayhem on the white community. The reason i specifically want to target white people is because as a black male, they will NEVER understand my struggles. Same way I will never understand their struggles, but I don’t care to. I want to erase them. All of them really, but in this case as many as I possibly can. As of today I have officially began planning my attack. It is going to take place in 2023 in the state of New Jersey, I have not chosen a exact date but I am going to be sure it is close to an important holiday to their race. I have a location in mind already which I have frequented for the past year and I am certain nobody there is armed to be able to stop me from spraying them to the ground. I have already acquired 2 of the 4 firearms I plan to use for my attack, and I also know my entry and exit points already after the mayhem.
But then he went further, and on another platform wrote that he dreamed of becoming a serial killer, prosecutors continued.
“I hope I do progress into a serial killer because I f***ing hate life man,” he wrote:
• But one day everyone will suffer. I promise I will make everyone feel my f***ing pain. My deep, sincere, raw, & sharp pain.
• There is no way out for me. The only way out is bloodshed.
• Just wait man. Remember [my username]. [I] will leave clues when im done.
• I’m just leaving evidence for whoever investigates my case.
Cobb wrote that he hated cats and killed them with a crossbow that sends arrows “straight through their brains.”
Cobb also seems to believe that he is mentally ill.
“No documented history but I definitely have problems but I refuse to get evaluated because I will lose my firearms license here in America,” he wrote:
Not to mention, pretty much every single person in my family tree clearly shows signs of multiple different mental illnesses & I had 3 aunts who were diagnosed Schizophrenics, so do as you will with that information.
Confession
In his confession to the FBI agents after they seized his iPhone, Cobb explained that he would attack at a gym because “gyms are really crowded around 5 p.m,” prosecutors allege.
He also fantasized about shooting shoppers in a grocery store because those stores are “almost always crowded.” “I was feeling I wanted to hit … a specific grocery store that was in Robbinsville cause it was like one of them grocery stores like where you just see all these fucking rich-ass white people,” he told the FBI agents.
Cob wanted to emulate other mass shooters, the criminal complaint alleges.
Cobb told agents “he had watched Nikolas Cruz’s 6 videos and ‘felt a connection‘ with Cruz and ‘felt his pain.’ In discussing Payton Gendron, COBB stated that he ‘liked his attack, liked the element of surprise and style.’”
Cruz murdered 17 people and wounded 17 more at Marjory Stoneman High School in 2018 in Parkland, Florida. He is serving 34 consecutive life sentences. Gendron is serving 11 consecutive life sentences for the murder of 10 blacks in Buffalo, New York, in 2022.
Cobb told agents he had plenty of access to guns, the criminal complaint alleges:
[He knew someone who] knew how to like 3D print sh*t, he would make a f***ing, it would not take long, he could literally make a frame for any pistol, any gun you can imagine, he’d make a frame for it and all you’d have to do is f***ing put the parts, you could buy the parts, you don’t need a license for it, you can buy it piece by piece, and then just literally assemble a homemade gun, so I had a few like that.
Cobb told agents his relatives owned guns, “so I had access to guns, to this day, I do.”
His iPhone contained directions for bringing guns into New Jersey, the complaint alleges.
The complaint notes that Cobb finished basic training on October 16, 2023 and was discharged on May 10.
Cobb was charged with transmitting a threat in interstate and foreign commerce. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s National Security Unit are handling the case with the help of the Justice Department’s Counterterrorism Section of the National Security Division
H/T: New York Post
