US marine arrested after vowing to ‘erase’ white people

A black New Jersey man who enlisted last year has been accused of plotting to carry out mass murder

A US Marine Corps rifleman who completed basic training last year has been arrested on allegations that he threatened to kill as many white people as possible.

Joshua Cobb, a 23-year-old New Jersey native, was jailed on May 10 and discharged from the Marine Corps on the same day. Until then, he had been serving as a private first class in the 1st Marine Division in California. He was charged with transmitting a threat via the internet, which is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Federal prosecutors announced Cobb’s arrest on Monday, citing alleged threats dating back to December 2022, about six months before he joined the military. A Marine Corps spokeswoman told Military.com that the 1st Marine Division learned of the allegations against Cobb from civilian authorities in New Jersey.

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Prosecutors cited a social media post in which Cobb threatened to “cause mayhem on the white community.” The post said, “The reason I specifically want to target white people is because as a black male, they will never understand my struggles . . . . I want to erase them – all of them really, but in this case, as many as I possibly can.”

The post indicated that Cobb planned to carry out his attack against white people in 2023 in New Jersey. “I have not chosen an exact date, but I am going to be sure it is close to an important holiday to their race,” he allegedly said. “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.”

Later messages, posted in April and May of 2023, indicated that Cobb was training for an attack while stockpiling ammunition. “I hope I do progress into a serial killer because I f*cking hate life, man. But one day, everyone will suffer. I promise I will make everyone feel my f*ucking pain – my deep, sincere, raw and sharp pain.”

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Cobb admitted in statements to law enforcement that he wrote the threatening posts, prosecutors said. They added that he also told investigators that he “idolized” mass shooters and that he had considered such locations as a fitness center and an Aldi grocery store for his attack.

More threatening messages were discovered in a search of Cobb’s cellphone, prosecutors said. The messages indicated that Cobb saw mass murder as the only possible escape from his pain. “I’m ready to get to the good part of my story, where I start taking you motherf*ckers out and killing you all,” one message said.

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Ex-marines and other former US service members have committed some of America’s worst mass shootings. An October 2023 analysis by CBS News found that 26% of mass shooters over a 60-year period had military backgrounds. One of the most infamous cases involved a former marine who climbed the clock tower at the University of Texas in 1966 and went on a shooting spree that left 14 people dead and 33 injured.