CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio-Frank Q. Jackson, the 24-year-old grandson of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, was shot multiple times and killed Sunday night at a home in the Kinsman neighborhood on the city's largely Black east side.
Police were called to the shooting near Sidaway and E. 70th St. in the Garden Valley projects at around 9 p.m and have not released any details about a possible suspect.
A $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to an arrest in the case, police said.
Mayor Jackson, who was escorted by police into and out of the home where the shooting incident occurred, was on the scene for much of the night as were Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams and Ward 6 Councilman Blaine Griffin.
Jackson is the city's four-term Black mayor who has opted not to seek an unprecedented fifth term this year with newcomer Justin Bibb a possible successor.
Bibb, 34, is Black and led in votes over six other candidates for mayor relative to last Tuesday's primary election. He will face off with second place finisher Council President Kevin Kelley via the Nov 2 nonpartisan general election.
The mayor's grandson, who is actually his step-grandson and the grandson of his longtime wife Edwina Jackson, has been in the news multiple times in recent months.
He was charged with domestic violence following an argument with his girlfriend back in 2020 and in July he was charged with felonious assault on a police officer and failure to comply with a police officer's order, a first and fourth degree felony respectively.
The latest charges stem from a traffic stop in Parma the night of Jan 23 that turned contentious when the younger Jackson decided to flee police and took them on a high speed car chase that crossed city lines into Cleveland and reached speeds of up to 100 miles per hour.
He faced a fine and up to 10 years in prison if convicted, and was out of jail on bond.
At the time of the chase a Cleveland warrant was pending against him on a first degree misdemeanor charge of domestic violence regarding a Dec. 18 encounter in which he is alleged to have struck his girlfriend in the head and face after a verbal altercation over baby diapers for the child they had together.
According to Parma police records, the younger Jackson was pulled over by Parma police shortly before midnight, allegedly for tinted windows. After purportedly agreeing to a police search of his car he took off in his automobile before it could be searched by police. The two White police officers present at the traffic stop grabbed him after he would not exit his car as allegedly ordered and, according to police body cams and a dash cam, one of the cops hung on to him temporarily as his car pulled away. The cop at issue was not hurt, a Parma police spokesperson later said. Though Parma police were in hot pursuit after he fled he was able to escape them after he reached Cleveland's west side near Steel-Yard Commons.
He turned himself in at the Parma Police Station the next morning and was cited for having tinted windows and charged in Parma with failure to comply with a police officer's order, a fourth degree felony. He was later transferred from the Parma jail to the Cuyahoga County Jail and subsequently indicted by a county grand jury on felony assault on a police officer, a first degree felony, and failure to comply with a police order, a fourth degree felony. He had pleaded not guilty in that case. While failure to comply with a police officer's order is typically prosecuted as a misdemeanor offense in most cases in Ohio, certain aggravating factors can make the alleged crime a felony, such as fleeing and eluding after committing a felony, or after causing serious harm. When he took Parma police on a wild car chase Frank Q. Jackson was already on probation relative to a plea deal before Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell that came following a 2019 indictment on felonious assault, abduction charges and two counts of failure to comply with police in which he was accused of punching and choking a young 18-year-old Black woman, and striking her with a metal truck hitch. In that case he agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor assault in exchange for dismissal of the felonious assault and other charges. In turn, Judge O'Donnell handed him a suspended 90 day sentence and put him on probation for 18 months.
In spite of his run ins with the law, the mayor's grandson was loved, the mayor once telling reporters in response to the controversy surrounding his grandson that he loves his family just like others do.
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