Teen charged in Little Rock nightclub shooting has ties to gang member killed in city in January

A man accused of firing the first shots in a gunfight that injured 28 people at a Little Rock nightclub in July has connections to a gang member slain in the city's first homicide of the year.

Police reports and social media posts show that Tyler Clay Jackson, 19, had ties to Mashon Lamar Jackson, a 20-year-old man who was fatally shot in January and whom police identified as a gang member afterward. Tyler Jackson posted photos of them together online after Mashon Jackson's death, writing "longliveshon" and "justice4shon" and calling Mashon his "brother," according to a Facebook account in his name.

Police on Thursday declined to comment on the relationship between the two. Police also declined to say whether Tyler Jackson has any gang associations. Though the department has said from the beginning that the gunplay July 1 at Power Ultra Lounge involved feuding gangs, it has withheld other information on the matter.

Tyler Jackson pleaded innocent Thursday morning in Little Rock District Court. He faces six counts of aggravated assault and three counts of second-degree battery. Judge Hugh Finkelstein ordered Jackson to be held at the Pulaski County jail in lieu of $500,000 bond after he's released from the Faulkner County jail in an unrelated case.

Police suspect that Jackson was the first of several people to open fire during a rap concert at the now-closed nightclub. An arrest report says that he "fired recklessly into a crowd" and struck at least three people.

In all, 25 people were injured by gunfire. Three others were hurt in the stampede to escape the second-story club.

The shooting made international headlines and led federal, state and local authorities to form a task force aimed at reducing violent crime in Little Rock. As of Oct. 1, police had recorded a 15 percent increase in homicides, aggravated assaults, rapes and robberies compared with the same nine-month period last year.

Police have said much of the violence, from the nightclub shooting to Mashon Jackson's death, has involved gang members.

In Mashon Jackson's killing on Jan. 8, the first homicide of the year, a police spokesman identified him as a gang member but declined to identify the gang. Police said he was driving a Lincoln MKZ in the area of West 34th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive when two passengers exchanged gunfire with people in a white car.

Mashon Jackson had survived a similar shooting six weeks earlier, when someone in a white car shot him in the chest outside an apartment complex, according to a police report.

After the killing, Tyler Jackson posted photos of himself and Mashon Jackson in which he called the slain man his "cuzzo," slang for cousin, and wrote, "I miss u mane," according to a Facebook page. One of the photos purportedly shows them together on Christmas morning. Mashon Jackson has a gun tucked in his waistband in the photo.

A review of police filings found another connection between the two. Tyler Jackson's home address, as listed on an arrest report, is the same as a cousin of Mashon Jackson's. The cousin, Tanasha Love, said Tyler Jackson lives in Conway but sometimes stayed at her home and was friends with her son.

Police investigated gunfire outside her residence six days after Mashon Jackson was killed, according to a police report. Love told officers that she believed it was connected to his death and that someone had been sending Facebook messages to her son threatening to "shoot up" their home.

Love said she didn't know anything about Tyler Jackson and Mashon Jackson's relationship.

Tyler Jackson's arrest in the nightclub shooting is his second in the past three months. Arkansas State Police arrested him Aug. 4 after he led a state trooper on a high-speed chase that ended in a fiery crash, according to a court affidavit.

Jackson drove on Interstate 40 in Conway at speeds faster than 100 mph and he was "weaving in and out of traffic, recklessly, using all three lanes of traffic," according to the affidavit. State police reported that Jackson continued fleeing north on U.S. 65 and nearly struck several vehicles. A trooper pursued Jackson into Greenbrier, where he rammed the back of Jackson's vehicle and forced Jackson to crash.

Jackson was reportedly thrown from the vehicle, which caught fire. He was taken by helicopter to UAMS Medical Center in Little Rock.

Jackson was released from the hospital Aug. 29 and charged with felony fleeing, aggravated assault, reckless driving and numerous other traffic offenses.

He was also charged with theft by receiving. The Subaru Forester he'd been driving had been reported stolen in Little Rock.

Jackson was being held in the Faulkner County jail when he was charged in the nightclub shooting. He remained there late Thursday.

His next court appearance in the nightclub shooting is set for Dec. 19.

He's the second accused shooter in the case.

Kentrell Gwynn, a bodyguard for a Memphis rapper who was performing during the shooting, faces 10 counts of aggravated assault, one for each shot he's accused of firing at the club. He was charged in August after Little Rock police said shell casings found at the nightclub matched a gun found with Gwynn.

Metro on 10/20/2017