Who Was Mark Essex?

Mark James Robert Essex was born in the year 1949 in Emporia, Kansas in the United States of America. His friends remember him as a polite and a quite man who wanted to become a minister at church. He was basically an African American. He joined the United States Navy where he was subjected to racism from the white people and thus suffered from character and behaviour disorders. He was discharged from the Navy as a result of unsuitability on the 10th of February in the year 1971. After his discharge from the navy he became involved with black radicals and joined the New York Black Panthers and became an active member.

On the New Years Eve in the year 1972 when he was at the age of 23 and was living in New Orleans, he began targeting police officers. He hid in the parking lot of a police station and waited and then killed one police cadet and injured a police officer and then fled. On the 7th of January 1973 he arrived at the Downtown Howard Johnson's Hotel located at 330 Loyola Ave. He entered the hotel from the fire escape at the back with a gun in his hand. He then started entering the rooms of white people and started killing them and setting their rooms on fire. He continued doing this and the police and the fire department arrived. There was a lot of exchange in gun fire between him and the police. After a long gun fight he was finally killed. He had killed 19 people including 10 police officers.