‘I’m not a violent person,’ says Jacksonville artist, Tyler Jackson or Y&R Mookey, who was just sentenced to ten years for firearm charges.
Tyler Jackson was convicted in February of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Yesterday, April 12th, Jackson was sentenced to seven years in prison with a three-year probation. Judge Charbula stated that she saw him as a “threat to the community” as part of her reasoning. The original sentence was to be 20 years in prison.
“I am not the person that the state is trying to make me out to be,” Jackson, 23, told Judge Meredith Charbula during his sentencing hearing. Jackson argued that his music videos were for entertainment purposes and that he is, “Not a violent person. I’m not no gang member.”
Jackson’s initial arrest came from an operation in 2019 carried out by the Jacksonville Police Department dubbed ‘Operation Rap Up’ in which the police arrested 6 people, including Jackson. Each of the arrests were based on “Possession of Firearm by a Convicted Felon” or “Possession of Firearm by a Juvenile Delinquent found to have committed a Felony Act” charges.
The police based these arrests on music videos found on social media and called it a ‘sting operation’ despite presenting no evidence as to whether any of the firearms in these videos were real or not when asked.
One of the videos used in ‘Operation Rap Up,’ depicted above, may have shown guns but when Jacksonville county sheriff, Mike Williams, was asked how they identified whether the guns were real or not he responded, “So there’s a lot of steps we’ll take with experts and other things in court to do that, but obviously we feel strongly we’re on the right track with the right people.”
This may be an indication that the police department was engaging in retroactive evidence, meaning they saw these music videos and acted based on what they assumed was happening rather than concrete proof that the weapons were real.
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Seeing as how in 2015, 4 years before this operation, black Floridians were killed by police at a higher rate than any other race, despite making up only 31% of the Jacksonville population, it seems that another explanation could be that the police were targeting the color of their skin rather than any crime that was committed.
Another irony of all of this is that Florida has some of the loosest gun restrictions in the entire country, which is saying something when the country is the United States.
The NRA has posted this overview on their website when it comes to gun law in Florida, showing that there are almost no restrictions and very few permits required to own firearms in the sunshine state.
Gun Laws Overview
| RIFLES & SHOTGUNS | HANDGUNS | |
|---|---|---|
| Permit to Purchase | No | No |
| Registration of Firearms | No | No |
| Licensing of Owners | No | No |
| Permit to Carry | No | Yes |
| STATE STATUS | |
|---|---|
| Castle Doctrine | Enacted |
| No-Net Loss | Enacted |
| Right to Carry Confidentiality | Provisions Enacted |
| Right to Carry in Restaurants | Partial Ban |
| Right To Carry Laws | Shall Issue |
| Right To Carry Reciprocity and Recognition | True Reciprocity |
| Right to Keep & Bear Arms State Constitutional Provisions | With Provisions |
Addressing gun law and getting guns off the streets are the first steps to limiting gun violence, not carrying out sting operations against a group of young black men with an average age of 23.
To make matters worse, the Florida Department of Corrections, where Tyler Jackson was sentenced too, has a recidivism rate that consistently surpasses 60% for released inmates and 70% for offenders admitted to community supervision from month to month. This means Jackson’s likelihood of becoming someone who is not, “A threat to the community,” isn’t very high.
