Staff photo / Ed Runyan Darnell E. Jackson, 21, is with his attorney, Scott Cochran, during Jackson’s hearing Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Jackson was sentenced to prison for shooting at a repossession agent who was removing a car from a house on Plum Street just west of downtown Youngstown in 2022.

YOUNGSTOWN — The attorney for a man who pleaded guilty to felonious assault Thursday said the incident leading to the charges was not related to a fight over drugs or anything similar.

His client, rather, thought he was protecting a friend from having a car stolen.

Attorney Scott Cochran said Darnell E. Jackson, 21, of West Chalmers Avenue, was at his brother’s house, along with others, when a person showed up “early in the morning and is taking one of the cars that is in the driveway. He thinks somebody is stealing it.”

It turns out the person was working for an Akron company that was there to repossess the car. The person was not injured when shots were fired, and he agreed to the prison sentence prosecutors recommended — 5 to 7 years in prison — Assistant prosecutor Pat Kiraly said.

Another person fired a weapon too, but that person was never identified or prosecuted, Cochran said. “There’s weapons in the house. They think somebody is stealing their car. The shot goes through a side mirror off of the passenger side of the car being towed,” Cochran said.

Cochran told Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge John Durkin there was no “legal justification” for Jackson firing a gun at the person removing the car.

“But I do think there is a distinction between trying to shoot a person on the street over a drug deal or something like that, which is what many of these cases are about, and that’s not what this is,” Cochran said.

He said Jackson’s parents were in court Thursday, and Jackson is “one of the most respectful clients I have ever represented,” and he is “smart” and “capable of doing things with his life.” His brother was a homicide victim, and the case was tried in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, Cochran said.

“He is acutely aware of what this cycle of violence we have in this community is because he and his family have been victims of that.”

He said Jackson’s decision making that day was “clearly the wrong decision,” but Jackson could “come out of prison and be a very productive person.”

Jackson said, “I’m still young. I’m living and learning, and I just hope I can overcome my situation.”

Jackson pleaded guilty Thursday to felonious assault and a gun specification and a separate aggravated drug possession offense for firing the gun on Plum Street just west of downtown Sept. 29, 2022. Some other charges were dismissed in exchange for his guilty plea.

The judge sentenced Jackson to 4 to 5.5 years in prison.

Prosecutors said they would not oppose Jackson being released on judicial release when the appropriate time comes. Judicial release is an early release from prison approved by the sentencing judge.

Kyle Hilles, assistant county prosecutor, told the judge the reason prosecutors recommended the 5 to 7 years was because shooting at the repossession worker not only could have been injured or killed, “but any stray bullets could have injured anyone else who was around.”

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