by: Mark Pitcavage
September 15, 2016
Marc Payne mug shot
In what may be the most recent attempt at violence against police officers by someone angry over the highly publicized police killings of black men across the United States in recent years, a Phoenix man allegedly rammed his vehicle into a trio of police officers standing outside a convenience store.
A police-obtained video from the incident, which occurred on September 12, shows a vehicle allegedly driven by Marc LaQuon Payne, 44, circling the store parking lot, then accelerating towards the officers, two of whom were seriously injured by the vehicle. The third received injuries while trying to arrest Payne. One of the officers was serving his first day on the job.
Payne has been charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder, five counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of resisting arrest. Phoenix police believe that Payne deliberately targeted the police officers and had surveilled them for several minutes before acting.
Several social media accounts that apparently belong to Payne reveal that he has extreme black nationalist views and that he had also been angry over police shootings since at least the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. These profiles and postings do not reveal membership or affiliation with any specific groups, but do illustrate a liking or admiration for a variety of black nationalist extremist groups and causes, ranging from the People’s New Black Panther Party (different from the New Black Panther Party) to the Huey P. Newton Gun Club to a variety of Pan-African groups and causes.
Remarks on Payne’s social media accounts in 2015 reveal considerable antipathy towards whites, including statements about violence. An April 2015 post asserts that “when the black man get [sic] ready to be free from whitey it will be war.” In May, another post states that “ain’t no Caucasian going [to] give back what their ancestors stole so they just as guilty.”
The most chilling comment came in June 2015: “The Caucasian needs to be slaughtered like the pigs that they are right along with the niggas who serve and protect them.”
Payne has been ordered held without bond.
Other similar incidents in 2016 include the Baton Rouge shootings by Gavin Long, the black nationalist and sovereign citizen, and the Dallas shootings by black nationalist extremist Micah Johnson.