CINCINNATI — Pastor Jackie Jackson has spent the last two days by his son's bedside at UC Medical Center as the 37-year-old recovers from intensive surgery after someone shot him twice in the stomach.
Cincinnati police say the shooting took place just before 4:30 p.m. outside a residence in the 3200 block of Wold Avenue between Hewitt Avenue and Malory Court.
Officers arrested 38-year-old Brandon Lundy, charging him with felonious assault. As of Wednesday night, Lundy was still being held in the Hamilton County Jail on a $75,000 bond.
"Obviously, like anybody — any parent, any brother, cousin — you know, it was really shocking," Jackson said.
Jackson said he had just arrived back in town and pulled into his garage when he got the call. By the time he got to UCMC, medical staff was rushing his son, who shares his name, into the emergency room.
He said he had to wait four hours for doctors to finish surgery before he could see his son.
"Getting to see his face was important, but sitting there was stressful. I'm used to coming to the hospital and being here with families," he said. "So I'm sitting there and I think ran through every scene I've ever been to, every family I've ever worked with and had a chance to minister to or try to comfort and just really looking at the screen where they had his name — it was a movie playing."
Jackson has been a prominent voice against gun violence in Cincinnati for years. He started by showing at shooting scenes and offering ministry and support for victims' families and loved ones. Then from 2016 through 2019, Jackson served as one of the city's community outreach advocates. He also dedicated his time as a volunteer minister for the God Squad, CPD's former faith-based liaisons.
In addition to his continued frontline work in the city, Jackson currently serves as a project manager for Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control and against gun violence.
But Jackson didn't become an advocate simply because he wanted to see an end to gun violence. He knows the trauma it inflicts firsthand.
"Over the last nine years, (my family) has had nine family members' lives taken by gun violence," he said.
In 2019, WCPO spoke with Jackson after his 14-year-old cousin was shot and killed near Grant Park in Over-the-Rhine. Jackson, too, is a victim himself.
When he was 10 years old, he said, he and a group of friends were chasing an adult neighbor on 13th Street in OTR when the man turned around and fired. Jackson said the bullet passed through his hand.
Now, his son is the eighth person in his family to survive gun violence, he said.
"The victim, the one that's wounded, the one that's shot and survived — there's a long road that we often don't think about past the news bite, past this happened and then, unfortunately how life goes, it's on from one family to the next," said Jackson. "My family, anybody's family — it's a long road. That is a lot to deal with. The trauma is a lot."
