(CNN) A little before midnight on Monday, March 20, James Harris Jackson, a white Army veteran from Maryland, set upon a stranger on a New York City street and stabbed him to death.
By early Wednesday, Jackson walked into a police station and confessed.
He did not know the victim, 66-year-old Timothy Caughman. He only knew that Caughman was black. That was enough.
In a jailhouse interview with the New York Daily News, Jackson expressed one note of regret.
"I didn't know (Caughman) was elderly," he said, explaining that his preferred victim would have been "a young thug" or "a successful older black man with blondes."
On Monday, a week after the attack, a grand jury brought an indictment. Two of the four counts against Jackson included an unusual designation -- murder, but qualified as "an act of terrorism."
"James Jackson wanted to kill black men, planned to kill black men and then did kill a black man," said Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, adding that he did it in New York, a diverse city, to send a message.
At the White House on the same day, a reporter questioned press secretary Sean Spicer about Caughman's murder and, specifically, Jackson's subsequent statements.
"So, what do you say to this?" American Urban Radio Networks reporter April Ryan said. "This is clear -- it's racism at its ugliest."
Spicer offered a blanket condemnation of "hate crimes, other crimes, anti-Semitic crimes," but never commented specifically on the attack in Manhattan, saying: "I don't know all the details."
President Donald Trump's Twitter feed remains silent on the matter. In the days after the murder, Trump tweeted about "National Agriculture Day," NASA and the GOP health care bill. After Jackson turned himself in, Trump sent out two messages about an attack in London that left four dead, including the alleged assailant.
"A great American, Kurt Cochran, was killed in the London terror attack," Trump tweeted. "My prayers and condolences are with his family and friends."
But nothing about Manhattan.
Caughman has been absent from the presidential social media feed. Jackson, too. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
A natural question follows. What separates the London attack from the one in New York? In both cases, individuals allegedly driven by hateful ideologies had committed deadly acts in their respective services -- and done so in locations that would focus media attention.
"The deadly attack on Timothy Caughman was domestic, racist terrorism," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted on Tuesday. "Why is the White House afraid to call it a hate crime?"
Whatever Trump says -- or doesn't say -- about Caughman's killing, the broader reaction across the political spectrum and in the media can be reduced to a similar point: "terrorism" in the post-9/11 American vernacular has become shorthand for "Islamic terrorism."
Think of the 2010 Austin terror attack.
Doesn't ring a bell? You're probably not alone.
When Andrew Joseph Stack III, a white Texan, flew a small airplane into the Internal Revenue Service office building in Austin seven years ago, killing himself and one person inside, authorities were careful not to describe the act as "terrorism."
"Part of our jobs in law enforcement is not to overreact and cause undue panic," Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said. "And with the information that we had, there was no need to alarm our colleagues around the country and community members by using the word 'terrorism.' That is why definitely I did not use it yesterday and I'm not using it today."
But Stack's own words, from his apparent suicide manifesto, were plain. He railed at length against the tax code, citing its finer points as "the measure of a totalitarian regime."
The letter continued: "I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are."
Donald Trump's rise
President-elect Donald Trump has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate and producing and starring in TV shows, he became a celebrity long before winning the White House.
Trump at age 4. He was born in 1946 to Fred and Mary Trump in New York City. His father was a real estate developer.
Trump, left, in a family photo. He was the second-youngest of five children.
Trump, center, stands at attention during his senior year at the New York Military Academy in 1964.
Trump, center, wears a baseball uniform at the New York Military Academy in 1964. After he graduated from the boarding school, he went to college. He started at Fordham University before transferring and later graduating from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania's business school.
Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating college in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City.
Trump attends an event to mark the start of construction of the New York Convention Center in 1979.
Trump wears a hard hat at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980.
Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977 to 1990, when they divorced. They had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
The Trump family, circa 1986.
Trump uses his personal helicopter to get around New York in 1987.
Trump stands in the atrium of the Trump Tower.
Trump attends the opening of his new Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, in 1989.
Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump
has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve."
Trump and singer Michael Jackson pose for a photo before traveling to visit Ryan White, a young child with AIDS, in 1990.
Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999 and had one daughter together, Tiffany.
Trump putts a golf ball in his New York office in 1998.
An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Tower in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice."
A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004.
Trump attends a news conference in 2005 that announced the establishment of Trump University. From 2005 until it closed in 2010, Trump University had about 10,000 people sign up for a program that promised success in real estate.
Three separate lawsuits -- two class-action suits filed in California and one filed by New York's attorney general -- argued that the program was mired in fraud and deception. Trump's camp rejected the suits' claims as "baseless." And Trump has charged that the New York case against him is politically motivated.
Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005.
Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon.
For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007.
Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Jr. and Ivanka -- in 2009.
Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump had been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996.
In 2012, Trump announces his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012. It was shortly before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa.
Trump appears on stage with singer Nick Jonas and television personality Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant.
Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May.
The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April.
Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race.
Trump delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, accepting the party's nomination for President. "I have had a truly great life in business," he said. "But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country -- to go to work for you. It's time to deliver a victory for the American people."
Trump apologizes in a video, posted to his Twitter account in October, for vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks he made a decade ago regarding women. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize,"
Trump said, referring to lewd comments he made during a previously unaired taping of "Access Hollywood." Multiple Republican leaders rescinded their endorsements of Trump after the footage was released.
Trump walks on stage with his family after he was declared the election winner on November 9. "Ours was not a campaign, but rather, an incredible and great movement," he told his supporters in New York.
Trump is joined by his family as he is sworn in as President on January 20.
Stack had plotted to use deadly, spectacular violence in an effort to trigger a political reaction -- in the service of political aims. It fit the federal definition of "domestic terrorism" to the letter.
But even then, during the first Obama administration, officials were loath to use the term. During an interview on The Diane Rehm Show weeks later, former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sought to carve out a distinction.
"To our belief, (Stack) was a lone wolf," she said. "He used a terrorist tactic, but an individual who uses a terrorist tactic doesn't necessarily mean they are part of an organized group attempting an attack on the United States."
Napolitano's description mapped out, if tortuously, a clear difference. But it also reinvented the word. By her given logic, a single individual without material support from others could not -- by definition -- carry out a terror attack.
The rise of ISIS further complicated the matter. Based in Iraq and Syria, the group is often referred to as having "inspired" an attack. In the chaotic hours after, analysts and experts search for certain "hallmarks" to denote the ISIS influence. The perpetrators, in these cases, are not members of the group, nor lone wolves -- they are something in between. An unwelcome nuance in charged times.
The full facts surrounding Jackson's alleged murder of Caughman have not yet fully emerged. But if Jackson's confession withstands the legal process, and especially if the charges as currently constructed are proven, today's questions will linger on much longer.