JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — An 18-year-old aspiring rapper was shot Monday evening in the 2900 block of North Main Street then died after he and another victim made it to a hospital, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
A funeral notice and the family identified him as Dari’one Dewone Sheron Flanigan, whose nickname was “Trouble.”
Police did not release any information about the initial shooting when it occurred or report Flanigan’s death until it posted it Wednesday on its website.
Officers were called to UF Health just before 5:30 p.m. Monday where the two victims were in the emergency room after driving themselves there, according to the incident report. The report lists the location where it happened as a BP gas station and provides no other circumstances.
But Northside Coalition community activist Ben Frazier said he happened to drive past the crime scene Monday at the gas station, then past a second scene a few blocks away where the victims may have headed after the shooting.
“I saw a big police presence at 19th and Main streets. There must have been at least seven or eight police cars,” Frazier said. “Then I went to West 21st and North Pearl streets and I saw another crime scene surrounded by several police cars.”
Frazier said he was told there was a shootout in the BP gas station parking lot “involving more than one car.”
Flanigan, a former Lee High School student, posted May 26 on his Facebook page that “no weapon formed against me shall prosper.” The young rapper’s mother, Vonette Gordon Nixon, has posted multiple messages after his death on Facebook, wondering “how do I go on without my baby boy?” She also posted a music video of her son where he sang, “Yes sir, I got big dreams, want to rap-sing” as he danced along the Northbank Riverwalk.
Dan Scanlan: (904) 359-4549