Daily Progress, Jacksonville, TX

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September 2, 2010

One charged in weekend drive-by shootings

Nathan Straus Jacksonville Daily Progress

JACKSONVILLE — A Jacksonville man has been charged in connection with at least one of a trio of drive-by shootings, Jacksonville Police Department Detective Sgt. Daniel Franklin said. Abel Mejia, about 23, had already been arrested and charged with engaging in organized criminal activity in a recent case.

“There were three cases with three shootings in total,” Franklin said.

He also said every victim in the three shootings, which occurred around Aug. 21, has been released from local hospitals with minor injuries.

“The first shooting was on the 400 block of College,” Franklin said. “We obtained a description of a white SUV. After College, we had a second on the 1000 block of Sunset with a blue SUV. Later in the day there was a third shooting on the 600 block of James.”

During the investigation officers came to the conclusion all three shootings were connected in some way, Franklin said. One possibility of the later shootings is that of retaliatory strikes, he added.

“The victims are not cooperating, but on James we have independent witnesses,” Franklin said.

Investigators were able to identify one of the shooters and provide possible identities to the others. Franklin said a shooter was identified as Abel Mejia, already in the Cherokee County Jail in connection with an earlier assault in which a victim was struck with a set of brass or similar style knuckles. Mejia was still in custody at press time.

“We’re still following leads for the other shootings,” Franklin said. “We know the majority of these shootings are gang related and we will do thorough investigations and make sure the people involved with this are brought up on the charges they committed.”

Police Chief Reece Daniel said the officers who worked on the drive-by shooting cases were thorough in their investigations and fast to identify those involved.

“We keep an investigation ongoing at all times into gang activity in town,” Daniel said. “The intelligence information that we had on hand was also very helpful. We have a zero tolerance policy for any gang activity and especially gang violence.”

Anyone with more information into the drive-by shootings is encouraged to call investigators or detectives at the police department at 903-586-2546.

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