Repo Shooter Gets Stiff Sentence

Youngstown, OH – August 2, 2024 – Almost two years after shots were fired at an Akron based repossessor, the shooter is sentenced.

Back on September 29, 2022, then 19-year-old Darnell E. Jackson opened fire on an unnamed repossession agent and struck his truck. Fortunately for all, other than some rattled nerves, the agent was not injured.

Months had passed by without capture and Jackson thought he was off the hook. But the only thing behind him On December 16th were flashing police lights.

Heart racing; he was sure they knew he was holding, so he swallowed the drugs and pulled over. But this routine traffic stop turned out worse than he expected and his bad decision to open fire on a repossessor had caught up with him.

Repo Shooter Gets Stiff Sentence — Darnell Walker, at arrest when19

Soon after his arrest, he is said to have reported to the police that he was feeling ill as the results of the swallowed drugs.

Fast forward two years and Jackson is finally held accountable for his irresponsible actions of that night.

According to Jackson’s attorney Scott Cochran, Jackson, now 21, was at his brother’s house, along with others, when a person showed up “early in the morning and is taking one of the cars that is in the driveway. He thinks somebody is stealing it.”

But as it turned out, that person was a Repo Man there to repossess a car.

Another person fired a weapon too, but that person was never identified or prosecuted, Cochran said. “There’s weapons in the house. They think somebody is stealing their car. The shot goes through a side mirror off of the passenger side of the car being towed,” Cochran said.

Cochran told Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge John Durkin there was no “legal justification” for Jackson firing a gun at the person removing the car.

“But I do think there is a distinction between trying to shoot a person on the street over a drug deal or something like that, which is what many of these cases are about, and that’s not what this is,” Cochran said.

He said Jackson’s parents were in court Thursday, and Jackson is “one of the most respectful clients I have ever represented,” and he is “smart” and “capable of doing things with his life.” His brother was a homicide victim, and the case was tried in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, Cochran said.

“He is acutely aware of what this cycle of violence we have in this community is because he and his family have been victims of that.”

He said Jackson’s decision making that day was “clearly the wrong decision,” but Jackson could “come out of prison and be a very productive person.”

Jackson said, “I’m still young. I’m living and learning, and I just hope I can overcome my situation.”

Jackson pleaded guilty Thursday to felonious assault and a gun specification and a separate aggravated drug possession offense for firing the gun on Plum Street just west of downtown Sept. 29, 2022. Some other charges were dismissed in exchange for his guilty plea.

The judge sentenced Jackson to 4 to 5.5 years in prison.

Prosecutors said they would not oppose Jackson being released on judicial release when the appropriate time comes. Judicial release is an early release from prison approved by the sentencing judge.

Kyle Hilles, assistant county prosecutor, told the judge the reason prosecutors recommended the 5 to 7 years was because shooting at the repossession worker not only could have been injured or killed, “but any stray bullets could have injured anyone else who was around.”

Source: Vindy.com