White supremacist pleads guilty to NYC stabbing

NEW YORK - A white male pleaded guilty on Wednesday to killing a black man with a sword in New York City in 2017, marking the first conviction of a white supremacist on terrorism charges in New York state's history, according to authorities.

James Jackson, 30, admitted the stabbing of 66-year-old Timothy Caughman in March 2017 when the latter was collecting bottles for recycling in Midtown Manhattan. He turned himself in one day after the murder.

The victim struggled to report to a police station and then died in hospital.

The perpetrator traveled from Baltimore, Maryland to do this because New York City is the media capital, and he hoped the killing could instigate a race war, according to a statement of the Manhattan district attorney's office.

Jackson pleaded guilty to six counts including murder in the first degree in furtherance of an act of terrorism, murder in the second degree as a hate crime, among others.

He is expected to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on Feb 13.

"White nationalism will not be normalized in New York," said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr in his office's statement.

"If you come here to kill New Yorkers in the name of white nationalism, you will be investigated, prosecuted, and incapacitated like the terrorist that you are," he noted.

Jackson, a veteran who served in Afghanistan from December 2010 to November 2011, was brought up in a family of "typical liberal Democrats" and he had only shared his racist views with "like-minded people" online, according to his interview with the New York Daily News in 2017.

He also told the outlet that he regarded the killing as a "practice run" of his plan to stop interracial relationships.