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Family will meet press todayDescribe Essex as good boy'EMPORIA, Kan. (AP) — Mark James Robert Essex, identified by police as the sniper killed by New Orleans law-officers’gunfire, was described by members of his family Wednesday as a “good boy who became embittered by racial slights while in the Navy.“The Navy changed him,” said his mother, Mrs. Mark H. Essex, in an interview with CBS reporter Randy Daniel, a black who was the first newsman with whom the family has consented to speak following the death Sunday of the 24-year-old Essex.No other reporters were permitted to take part inthe interview, but the family has scheduled a news conference at 11 a.m. (ST Thursday at St. James Baptist Church.“I think it wasthis white racist society that drove Jimmy to do what he did.” said his sister, Mrs. Penny Fox, of Waterloo, Iowa. “When Jimmy went intothe Navy he really saw what life, the world, w as all about.“He saw that white people control the world, and blacks were being oppressed by the white man. He didn’t like society the way it is. lie wanted to change things. The Navy to Jimmy was his own privatehell.”Mrs. Essex said her son encountered numerous small slights in his Navy experience, such as being required to show his identification card at every possible occasion and 1kmng stopped several times bv police.“It’s just these little things that made Jimmy what he was,” she said. “You know you just keep putting a little snow up on top of snow, you know it’s going to break.She and her husband were asked if they had ever (Continued to page 9)
Newspaper Details
Olathe Daily News
Olathe, Kansas, US
Thu, Jan 11, 1973
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Salina P.
KS, USA 17 Jul 2023
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Olathe Daily News
