New UB engineering grad shot to death near South Campus
Bronx man, 23, is killed by gunman on Main Street near South Campus
A man who had just graduated from the University at Buffalo was shot to death early Sunday near the South Campus in the city’s University Heights section.
Javon R. Jackson, 23, of the Bronx, was crossing Main Street between Lisbon and Highgate avenues with friends at about 3:15 a. m. when he was shot by a man in the company of three others, Buffalo police said. He was taken to Erie County Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
A moment of silence was observed in Jackson’s memory at Alumni Arena on UB’s North Campus in Amherst during the university’s general commencement ceremony Sunday morning. Jackson received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering Saturday. He was a member of the Order of the Engineer, the national engineering ethics society.
“The university is deeply saddened by this tragic loss,” UB President John B. Simpson said. “Our hearts go out to Javon’s family and friends.”
Jackson’s mother was in town from New York City for his graduation, as was his father, who was in from Chicago.
“His father and mother were so proud to have their son graduate from college. Now they are distraught beyond words, and questioning why anyone would kill their son,” said Chief of Detectives Dennis J. Richards.
Richards, Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson and Mayor Byron W. Brown held a news conference Sunday afternoon at the site of the shooting, calling on anyone with information to call the Police Department’s confidential tip line at 847-2255.
“We want people who know anything about this incident to search their hearts and come forward,” Brown said. “This should be a joyous occasion for his family, and instead, a mother has to think about funeral arrangements for her son on Mother’s Day.”
That stretch of Main Street was awash early Sunday with college students celebrating graduation and the end of the semester. Police believe that a number of people might have witnessed the shooting.
The gunman was with three other men when they walked up behind Jackson, according to police, and at least two shots were fired.
There were reports of a couple of skirmishes in the bars in the area at about that time, but police do not yet know whether Jackson or his killer were involved in any of them, or whether the two knew each other.
“It seems something occurred after leaving some of the clubs and establishments on Main Street,” Gipson said. “Something may have happened. There was no fight, but words may have been exchanged.”
The victim was shot less than three blocks from the site of an attack in March 2008 that left another UB student paralyzed. He was Buffalo’s 17th homicide victim this year. At this time last year, 15 people had been killed in the city.
Jackson, who lived on Lisbon, was killed less than a block from Main and Highgate, apparently in view of one of the dozens of police surveillance cameras in the city.
After reviewing recorded video from police surveillance cameras, police today said that images were captured pertaining to the homicide.
"The cameras will be useful," police spokesman Michael J. DeGeorge said, adding that at this point he cannot elaborate because the images involve evidence.
Even with possible evidence from the cameras, Gipson said on Sunday that "the best information ... would be an eyewitness account."
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