August 12, 1949 - Mark Essex
Essex's attacks over a span of just eight days represented one of the deadliest sniper incidents in American urban history, combining careful positioning, prolonged standoffs, and a deliberate targeting logic rooted in racial and institutional grievance. His radicalization followed a recognizable arc — military service marked by discrimination, exposure to Black nationalist ideology, and a specific precipitating event — that escalated with unusual speed into mass violence. The New Orleans attacks exposed serious gaps in how law enforcement responded to elevated, fortified gunfire, and prompted reassessments of urban tactical doctrine.
From Wikipedia
Mark James Robert Essex (August 12, 1949 – January 7, 1973) was an American serial sniper and black nationalist known as the "New Orleans Sniper" who killed a total of nine people, including five police officers, and wounded twelve others, in two separate attacks in New Orleans on December 31, 1972, and January 7, 1973. Essex was killed by police in the second armed confrontation.
Essex is believed to have specifically sought to kill white people and police officers due to racism he had previously experienced while enlisted in the Navy. His increasingly extremist anti-police, black supremacist, and anti-white views are believed to have solidified following a November 1972 violent clash between Baton Rouge sheriff's deputies and student civil rights demonstrators, during which two young black demonstrators were shot and killed.
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