Great-grandson is latest member of anti-gun Cleveland mayor's family to be arrested for gun crime

Lost in the midst of the terrible attacks on El Paso, Texas and Dayton, OH was the news that yet another relative of anti-gun Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson was arrested for committing a crime with a gun.

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

The 16-year-old great-grandson of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson was arrested on suspicion of shooting at Cleveland police officers, according to court documents.

The teen and a 17-year-old boy were charged Friday with felonious assault, discharging a firearm, improperly handling a gun in a car and criminal damaging.

Both teens are being held in the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center until a July 29 pretrial.

Jackson’s great-grandson and another teen fired shots at the officers about 11:50 p.m. on East 86th Street near Quincy Avenue, according to police.

Officers spotted duo in a car about three miles south on East 93rd Street and Harvard Avenue, according to police.

One of the teens was arrested during the stop, police said. The passenger got out of the car and ran. Officers caught up to him and arrested him, according to police.

Officers reported finding a gun inside the car. Cleveland police have not released any other information on the incident.

Fortunately, no police officer was hit by the gunfire.

Police say the great-grandson was previously arrested on burglary and gun possession charges in 2017.

The Plain Dealer did try to obtain a comment from the mayor (they failed), but they don't seem to have bothered to explore where the minor children got the gun.

Not only is this not the first time the anti-gun rights mayor's great-grandson was charged with a gun crime, the great-grandson isn't the only relative of the mayor's to have been charged with committing a crime with a firearm. TWO other family members have been as well!

In 2018, the mayor's nephew was convicted on a federal weapons charge and sentenced to eight years in prison.

That same year, the mayor's grandson and namesake Frank Q. Jackson Jr. pled guilty to two felony weapons-related charges stemming from a 2017 incident.

A WOIO (Fox Cleveland) report at the time of his sentencing said Jackson was then put into the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas diversion program, and that if he completed the program the charges would be dismissed.

Fast forward to 2019, and this same man was just recently sentenced to two years probation after yet another run-in with the law.

From WOIO (Fox Cleveland):

Frank Q. Jackson, 22, was sentenced to two years probation after pleading guilty to shooting civilians with with a paintball gun in Cleveland.

Jackson pleaded guilty to attempted drug abuse and aggravated disorderly conduct earlier this month.

He was arrested May 19 after pulling up next to people in his truck and shooting them with a paintball gun by Quincy Avenue and Kennard Road.

The victims told Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority Police that they believed the paintball gun was a real gun at the time.

CMHA police said Jackson also had two suspected oxycodone pills in the upper center roof console, a glass jar of marijuana and two real firearms and bullets in the front passenger door compartment.

According to the police report, Jackson does have a concealed carry weapon permit, but he did not tell officers about the permit or weapons in his truck.

WOIO seems generally uninterested in how Jackson was able to obtain a concealed handgun license after the 2017 incident, or why he was not charged with failure to notify in this most recent incident. But there seems to be an emerging pattern here of the justice system failing to properly deal with this individual.

In a statement released following the arrest of his grandson in 2017, Mayor Jackson said "Frank is my grandson and as any parent or grandparent who has raised children in a challenging environment knows, there is a constant worry about their wellbeing."

Mayor Jackson's repeated efforts to violate the Second Amendment rights of residents of this "challenging environment" have been found by courts to be unconstitutional (see here and here).

In early 2018, the Ohio Supreme Court refused to take up the City of Cleveland's appeal of an Eighth District Court of Appeals decision which declared that a Cleveland gun offender registry and several gun regulations first proposed by Mayor Frank Jackson in 2014, and passed by city council in 2015 are unconstitutional. A lower court had already struck down other parts of the law in 2016.

Buckeye Firearms Association has fought Jackson's efforts for many years. We have repeatedly exposed the fact that the local gun control policies he supports are rarely used to prosecute crimes because, as municipal statutes, they can only be enforced as misdemeanors, whereas when crimes are committed involving firearms, state laws have been violated that carry felony penalties are involved. Given the choice, prosecutors will naturally chose to pursue charges on the higher penalty.

It's no surprise that crime is up in a "challenging environment" like Cleveland. What else would anyone expect when the city "leaders" are part of the problem instead of part of the solution?

Chad D. Baus served as Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary from 2013-2019. He is co-founder of BFA-PAC, and served as its Vice Chairman for 15 years. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website, and is also an NRA-certified firearms instructor.