On July 7, 2016, the world witnessed what authorities are now saying was a single lone sniper terrorize the city of Dallas, Texas while targeting members of the law enforcement community during a peaceful civil rights protest.
The sniper, who was later identified as 25-year-old army veteran Micah Xavier Johnson, was cornered early Friday morning in a parking garage and killed with an explosive device, but not before killing five and wounding six police officers in a deadly rampage.
Many people have drawn comparisons between this event and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, which also took place in Dallas. However, that comparison isn’t as accurate as a shooting that took place on January 7, 1973, some 447 miles southeast of Dallas in New Orleans, Lousiana .
A rooftop sniper named Mark Essex, took control of the rooftop of what was then the Howard Johnson hotel on Loyola Avenue. There he killed seven people, including three police officers, while wounding eight.
Essex was a former naval veteran who served two years under what he described as extremely racist conditions before going AWOL (Absent With Out Leave) in 1970, he was finally discharged in 1971 for “character and behavior disorders. After the military Essex fell in with black radicals in San Fransisco, California, he later joined a New York chapter of the Black Panthers.
Essex sent a letter to the WWL TV station on December 31, 1972, warning of an attack in downtown New Orleans. The letter read:
Africa greets you. On December 31, 1972, aprx. 11 p.m., the downtown New Orleans Police Department will be attacked. Reason — many, but the death of two innocent brothers will be avenged. And many others.
P.S. Tell pig Giarrusso the felony action squad ain’t shit.
Mata
That same day, Essex killed a police cadet and another officer. He managed to elude police for a week before he was wounded in a shootout in a grocery store. He was able to escape again and made his way to the Howard Johnson hotel for his fatal confrontation.
Essex was eventually killed, after receiving over 200 gunshot wounds from a military helicopter as well as police on the roof, and sharpshooters on nearby rooftops.
This is just one episode all but forgotten in history. It’s important that America remembers events like this so that we can ask ourselves what we could do differently to break a cycle of violence, mistrust, and hatred. Let us not allow Dallas become another forgotten chapter in history.
Featured image via Nola.com
