Black Man Charged With Threatening to Kill White People in Mass Shooting

A Black man from New Jersey who was until recently a U.S. Marine has been charged with threatening to kill white people — “as many as I possibly can” — in a ranting message posted online, federal prosecutors said on Monday.

The man, Joshua Cobb, acknowledged to F.B.I. agents in an interview last month that he had written the threatening message, admitted posting other ominous comments and described in detail several sites he had considered as potential targets, a criminal complaint says.

During the interview, the complaint says, Mr. Cobb also discussed his affinity for other mass shooters, including the gunman who killed 17 people at a Florida high school in 2018 and the white teenager who killed 10 Black people in a racist attack at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022.

Mr. Cobb, 23, of Trenton, was charged with one count of transmitting a threat in interstate and foreign commerce. He was scheduled to make an initial appearance before a magistrate judge in Federal District Court in Trenton Monday afternoon, the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey said. It was not immediately clear whether he appeared in court.

Mr. Cobb faces up to five years in prison if convicted. Saverio Viggiano, a federal public defender representing him, declined to comment.

Mr. Cobb posted the message that led to the charge against him on an unidentified social media platform in December 2022, the complaint says, starting with the statement: “I want to cause mayhem on the white community.”