Family mourns shooting death of Antonio Jackson, shot by deputy
Family and friends who gathered for a candlelight vigil Tuesday wanted people to know they were celebrating the life of a good father.
Antonio Jackson, 26, had three girls and was close to becoming a father of four. He died Monday afternoon after a sheriff 's deputy fired shots into his car at the Robinhood Park Apartments. Officials say the deputy fired shots after Jackson hit him with his car.
“It hurts,” Jamecia Woodson said Tuesday. Woodson, the mother of one of Jackson's three girls, is seven months pregnant with his child. “He's a really good, nice guy.”
Family members also gathered Monday afternoon, outside a barrier placed by law enforcement a few blocks north of the apartment complex. They were frustrated and wanted answers, unsure while they convened in a front yard at the intersection whether Jackson was alive.
“My biggest issue is, why can't you tell me what's going on?” Jamica Harris, Jackson's aunt, told The Commercial Appeal Monday.
Harris is the sister to Jackson's father, also named Antonio Jackson. Family said he was also in the car when the deputy fired his gun, but was not shot. The deputy was sent to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, officials said.
“Just because he was nothing to y'all doesn't mean he wasn't something to somebody,” Denise Richard, the mother to Jackson's two oldest girls, said Tuesday.
Richard described a man who liked to laugh, support his friends, and love his daughters.
“He was not a thug, he was not a criminal — he was a whole person,” Richard said. “And he did not deserve to be taken out that way.”
Close to 50 people arrived at the candlelight, held at the corner of Robin Hood Lane and Norris Avenue Tuesday evening. Family wrote messages on red, gold and white balloons, some of them shiny stars released into the tree canopy over the street.
Before the balloon release, people gathered around the corner of the intersection, their faces lit by the glow of tea candles that spelled out “Long Live Tonio!” with a heart shimmering at the bottom.
Jackson's maternal aunt delivered a prayer, thanking people for coming and asking them to hold one another up. She prayed for protection and for healing.
“We pray that justice will be served,” she said. Sheri Owens, Jackson's mom, stood a few steps from the heart of tea candles on the sidewalk.
In the silence after the prayer and balloon release, she looked into the flickering candlelight, clutching a picture frame to her chest. She slowly and softly shook her head.