Jackson’s 91st homicide was a man who was out on $150,000 bond awaiting trial on a 2018 murder charge.
According to police, Booker Tarvin Jr., 26, was shot to death in the Rebel Woods Apartments late Sunday. Police say Tarvin was fatally shot multiple times. He died at the scene.
He was last seen with two unknown black males walking around the complex, police said.
Tarvin was accused in the shooting death of Terry Jordan, 33, in 2018. He was arrested by the Jackson Police Department’s Gun Crimes Interdiction Team (which was disbanded shortly afterward by Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and Police Chief James Davis) and ATF Task Force members four days after Jordan’s death. Tarvin was allegedly found to be with a Glock 23 and a load of methamphetamine.
A look at Tarvin’s court records shows a bench warrant issued by Judge Tomie Green after Tarvin had not reported to the court or communicated with his attorneys. After that was a continuance, with the reason given that his attorney at the time, Leslie Brown, had complications of Covid that would have her out of commission for 10 weeks. Green noted in handwriting to the side that Tarvin also had a bench warrant.
The trial was continued until March 2022, according to the court documents.
Tarvin bonded out, but only after requesting a bond reduction, which Green denied. He told his attorney he was getting a new attorney, but the court records end on the continuance.
Jordan had been a popular figure in circles associated with drugs at the time, but officers who had worked his case said he had a lot of allies. He was found shot to death in his vehicle late on May 20, 2018, at an apartment complex on W. Silas Brown Street.
Tarvin was taken to the Hinds County Jail at Raymond. An email from Tarvin’s mother to Therese Apel, at the time working at The Clarion-Ledger, stated that he also had been assaulted by other inmates.
“Broken nose and stitches all for being considered guilty before proven innocent,” the email stated.
A video was also sent around the time that claimed to show inmates beating Tarvin with their meal trays.
When Tarvin was arrested, he was driving a car belonging to Elbert Silas, a known high-level drug dealer who is now serving time in federal prison after being arrested as a part of an operation by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF).
Tarvin’s father, Booker “Shanky” Tarvin Sr., of Jackson, was also sentenced to more than 12 and a half years in federal prison in 2013 for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than 500 grams of cocaine hydrochloride and “crack” cocaine as a part of Operation Paperchase, an extensive investigation targeting illegal narcotics distribution in the city of Jackson.
This is a developing story.
