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.
Mark James Robert Essex was born in Emporia, Kansas, on August 12, 1949. The second of five children born to Mark Henry and Nellie (née Evans) Essex, he was raised in a close-knit and religious household. His father was a foreman in a meat-packing plant and his mother counseled preschool-age children in a program for disadvantaged children.
Emporia, the community in which Essex was raised, consisted of 19,000 people and prided itself in a long tradition of racial harmony. As a child and adolescent, Essex had numerous friends of all races and seldom, if ever, encountered any form of racism.
As a child, Essex developed a passion for the Cub Scouts and an aptitude for music — playing the saxophone in his high school band. He also developed a passion for hunting and fishing in the rivers and streams within and around the city, and developed ambitions to become a minister in his teens.
Essex was popular among his high school peers, and refrained from trouble as a teenager. His sole brush with Emporia police occurred in 1965, when an officer incorrectly assumed Essex—who stood just 5 ft 4 in (160 cm) tall—was too young to drive. He is known to have dated both black and white girls in high school, on one occasion telling his mother he did not "see much difference" between girls of different races. An average student who performed best in technical subjects, Essex graduated from Emporia High School in 1967.
Shortly after graduating from high school, Essex briefly enrolled at Emporia State University. He dropped out after just one semester, and briefly worked in the same meat-packing plant as his father as he considered his next career or educational move. Concluding his horizons were limited in Emporia, shortly after his 19th birthday, Essex decided to enlist in the United States Army. Upon the advice of his father, a World War II veteran, he instead opted to join the Navy and seek vocational training.
Essex enlisted in the Navy on January 13, 1969, committing himself to a four-year contract at advanced pay. Within three months, he was assigned to the Naval Air Station at Imperial Beach, California. His family would later reflect that, as Essex prepared to enlist, he was "happy go lucky".
Initially, Essex's experiences in the Navy were positive. He performed his compulsory training at the Naval Training Center with exemplary results. His superiors recommended he enroll in the Navy Dental Center. Essex accepted this advice and was apprenticed as a dental technician in April 1969, specializing in endodontics and periodontics. He soon formed a close and ongoing friendship with his white supervisor, Lieutenant Robert Hatcher. However, Essex soon learned that bigotry from many of the white servicemen towards blacks (both overt and discreet) was a general everyday occurrence for blacks serving within the Navy. Shortly after his enlistment, Essex obtained a job as a bartender at an enlisted men's club named the Jolly Rotor, where he discovered that certain rooms were off-limits to blacks. In one letter to his mother, Essex wrote his experiences of racial relations within the Navy were "not like [he] thought [they] would be. Not like Emporia. Blacks have trouble getting along here."
Throughout 1969, Essex suffered these indignities quietly—apparently believing what he had been told by other black sailors: that he would be treated better once he achieved a higher rank. Within a year, he had risen to the rank of seaman, although the harassment continued, and he began taking sedatives. Shortly thereafter, Essex formed a close friendship with a black colleague named Rodney Frank; a self-described black militant who worked in the Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Department. The two regularly socialized in their off-duty hours, and by the summer of 1970, Essex had become markedly radicalized. Frank also encouraged Essex to read literature about individuals such as Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, who together had founded the Black Panther Party.
Several months after Essex's acquaintance with Frank, in August 1970, he became involved in a physical altercation with a white NCO moments after hearing the individual state his belief as to "how beautiful" it must have been in decades past when "a nigger went to sea it was below decks, in the galley". Although Essex and his adversary agreed to a compromise to avoid either being admonished for the altercation, the fact he had struck a white sailor of senior rank increased the level of harassment and intimidation he was subjected to from white personnel. Two months later, on the morning of October 19, Essex went absent without leave (AWOL) from the Navy. He phoned his mother from a bus station, informing her: "I'm coming home. I've just got to have some time to think."
Essex returned via a Greyhound bus to Emporia, and remained AWOL until November 16, 1970. While AWOL, he repeatedly described to his family his experiences of overt discrimination at the hands of many of the white Navy sailors, his overt bitterness, and his resultant growing hatred towards the white race. Although his family attempted to reason with Essex against this viewpoint, Essex exclaimed: "What else is there? They take everything from you. Your dignity, your pride. What can you do but hate them?"
One month after his desertion from the Navy, Essex's family persuaded him to return to Imperial Beach. Prior to doing so, Essex ensured he spoke to Lieutenant Hatcher, to whom he explained his reasons for his desertion. Hatcher's official notes state Essex informed him: "I don't want to have anything more to do with the Navy. It wouldn't be fair, not to you or the (dental) patients. The bad atmosphere would affect my work. The work is the only thing on this base I like." He then agreed to plead guilty to the charge of desertion.
At the subsequent hearing, Hatcher provided a vigorous defense of his protégé, praising his work ethic and stating the decision for his desertion had been influenced solely by ongoing racial discrimination. The judge conceded these factors were the cause and sentenced Essex to a lenient punishment of thirty days' restriction to base and forfeiture of $90 of his pay (the equivalent of approximately $752 as of 2026) for two months.
Essex was given a general discharge from the Navy for general unsuitability on February 11, 1971, at the age of 21. This experience embittered Essex as he felt he had been unfairly stigmatized by the Navy, who had known only too well the discrimination he had endured. This led him to continue exploring Black Panther ideology. He soon began referring to himself as "Mata", and embraced the extremist content of the 1968 book Black Rage.
Sometime around late-April 1971, Essex returned to his family in Emporia. Two months later, he purchased a Ruger Model 44 semi-automatic .44 Magnum carbine via mail-order from an Emporia Montgomery Ward outlet. Upon receiving the weapon several weeks later, he began incessantly target shooting in the countryside around Emporia in efforts to improve his marksmanship. That August, he abruptly left his family home without even informing his parents and drove to Louisiana. The precise reason for his relocation is unknown, although he may have chosen to relocate to this city to become reacquainted with Rodney Frank.