Man gets 20 years for 2017 slaying of teen

The 21-year-old Conway man authorities say sparked the July 2017 mass shooting at a downtown Little Rock club has pleaded guilty to killing the 14-year-old son of a drug dealer who claimed to use the money he made to pay for youth programs in the city.

Tyler Clay Jackson pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and robbery in exchange for a 20-year prison sentence from Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright, according to sentencing papers filed Wednesday by deputy prosecutor Amanda Fields.

Under the plea deal negotiated by his public defender, Cheryl Barnard, the charges were reduced from capital murder and aggravated robbery. Jackson, already imprisoned for fleeing and aggravated-assault convictions in Faulkner County, will have to serve 14 years before he can qualify for parole.

Cyncere Alexander was found shot dead in his father’s home in the Pleasant Pointe apartments on Green Mountain Drive. Neighbors described hearing five to six gunshots.

His killers left empty-handed. Police said a bag holding about 2 pounds of marijuana was found nearby. Three other men are charged in the slaying, one of them a former friend of the boy’s father.

The teen’s slaying came three weeks after more than two dozen people were injured in a late-night shootout during a rap concert at the Power Ultra Lounge at Sixth and Center streets. No one was killed in what was one of the nation’s largest mass shootings that year. The club was immediately closed.

The display of resurgent gang violence in Little Rock prompted Gov. Asa Hutchison to establish a task force combining local, state and federal authorities.