Joshua Cobb, a Black New Jersey man and recent Marine, has been charged after he threatened to kill “as many (white people) as I possibly can” in a message he posted online. Federal agents say Cobb acknowledged he wrote the message in addition to making other threatening comments and identifying potential sites for a mass shooting.
As the New York Times reports, during the interview with FBI agents, Cobb confessed to having an affinity for mass shooters, including the white teenager who killed 10 Black people in a racist shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in May 2022.
Cobb, 23, was charged with one count of transmitting a threat in interstate and foreign commerce and was supposed to make an appearance in Federal District Court on May 13, according to the United States attorney’s office in New Jersey. It is unclear if he appeared in court.
Cobb, who was arrested on May 10, faces up to five years in prison if he is convicted in the case.
#BREAKING : A former Marine from New Jersey was arrested and accused of threatening to kill white people and carry out a mass shooting targeting a gym and grocery store at NJ. Insane.Joshua Cobb, 23, of Trenton, wrote on social media in 2023 before he joined the Marines… pic.twitter.com/OoovWy8pQp— Zaki Solja (@zakisolja) May 14, 2024
In a press release from the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office, more notes were found after his phone was searched, which the office noted was executed lawfully.
“I’m ready to get to the good part of my story where I start taking you mother f*ckers out and killing you all,” one note read. “… My rampage will soon happen…I plan to now continue accumulating the necessary equipment needed to execute. Once all equipment is in, time will then tell. You will all die.”
Another note read, “It’s all a f*cking game, and you all are going to die. I currently lack the means necessary to kill as many as I intend to, but one day, I will have the available resources (finance) to purchase the appropriate weaponry for my killing(s).”
In December 2022, Cobb was alleged to have written the following on 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,” Cobb continued, as detailed in the complaint. “Same way, I will never understand their struggles, but I don’t care to.”
Cobb added: “I want to erase them. All of them, really, but in this case as many as I possibly can.”
Cobb also shared other details in his writings,saying he had already begun planning the attack, had already gotten two of the four guns he planned to use in the attack, and had planned for the attack to happen in New Jersey in 2023 “close to an important holiday to their race.”
In messages Cobb posted to another site, he briefly discussed his hopes of becoming a serial killer, writing at one point, “There is no way out for me. The only way out is bloodshed.”
According to the complaint, Cobb joined the Marines in 2023 and began basic training in South Carolina in June, finished in October, and was set to be transferred to a military base in California.
Before being discharged May 10, which coincided with his arrest, Cobb was interviewed at the base in April. According to the complaint, it was then that Cobb “provided detailed information on three locations he chose as possible targets for his attack,” which included a New Jersey gym, a supermarket in Robbinsville, New Jersey, and a Trenton suburb.
