A man accused in a 2019 murder on Wednesday said he was not aiming for the Beaumont man who was killed in the shooting Easter morning two years ago.
During the second day of arguments in Jefferson County’s 252 Criminal District Court, Tristan Ka’von Jackson, 25, sat quietly as a video played of him talking to detectives on April 22, 2019 — the day after the shooting.
“He was not the target,” Jackson said of 43-year-old Darrell Howard, who ultimately died as a result of the gunshot wounds he sustained in the shooting.
Police say Jackson went to speak with them to be “upfront” and clear his name and initially told them he didn’t shoot at Howard. He had not been arrested or charged, and he agreed to waive his Miranda rights before continuing to speak with officers who questioned him.
“They are saying I’m the shooter, but someone shot at me the other day,” Jackson said during the video interview.
But police said they have testimony from witnesses and video footage from a nearby gas station that ties Jackson to the scene of the shooting — the E and L Lounge and Restaurant in the 3100 block of Concord Road — and later captured him running to a parked car.
But the video and witnesses’ testimony weren’t the only potential links given Wednesday to tie Jackson to the killing.
A forensic scientist and firearm examiner, a witness for the state’s case, described with a model how she analyzed microscopic “tool marks” and secondary impression on expended ammunition found on the scene.
She said that revealed that all the bullets likely were fired from the same unknown firearm that she expects was a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson. However, police have yet to recover the gun that fired the shots.
In the video interview, Jackson told police he owned a Ruger 9 mm handgun, which officers recovered under Jackson’s mattress. The detectives and the state prosecutor said no other gun was found in his house, and no casings matching a 9 mm gun were found at the scene.
At first, according to the video interview, Jackson told police he was not the shooter. Instead, he was attempting to buy food at the nightclub when another man began shooting. Jackson said that man also had shot at him on a previous occasion.
Ultimately, Jackson admits in the video that he shot outside the club Easter morning — even demonstrating to police how he shot his weapon.
And when police told him that Howard had died from his gunshot wounds, Jackson continued to insist that he was not the only one shooting. He said he hoped the bullet that came from his gun was not the one that killed “an innocent bystander.”
“I really wasn’t aiming,” Jackson said.
Investigators later tied the 9 mm to a gun reported stolen from a vehicle in March 2019. Another gun, a .40-caliber, also was reported stolen during the same incident.
Jackson eventually told police he used a different gun outside the club, which he said he thought was a .380, and threw it in the Neches at Colliers Ferry Park off Pine Street. During court questioning, a detective on the case said Jackson went with police to show where he threw the weapon, but the Beaumont Dive Team was un able to recover it.
Jackson faces up to 99 years in prison if convicted of the first-degree felony.
meagan.ellsworth@beaumontenterprise.com
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