JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – An ongoing investigation, dubbed Operation Trigger Switch, nabbed its target -- a nine-time convicted felon from Jacksonville accused of selling guns and drugs, Sheriff T.K. Waters announced Wednesday.
Daniel Jarrett, 28, was arrested March 21 on charges of trafficking in fentanyl, trafficking in cocaine, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a vehicle with an altered ID number.
When investigators searched Jarrett’s home and pickup truck, they found 2 kilograms of cocaine, three-quarters of a kilogram of fentanyl, a stolen Glock, a rifle, another pistol, $20,000 in cash and a Glock pistol that had been rendered fully automatic by means of a trigger switch, Waters said.
According to Jarrett’s arrest report, JSO narcotics units had been surveilling Jarrett’s apartment building on Big Island Drive near the Town Center and moved in to arrest him March 21.
Jarrett has previously served time in prison four times for drugs and weapons convictions and was most recently released in 2021.
Waters pointed out that just 2 milligrams of fentanyl can be deadly, so the amount of fentanyl seized during the investigation computes to 375,000 lethal doses.
“Jacksonville is a city of about 950,000 to a million people,” Waters said. “So by this seizure alone, detectives seized enough to kill over 1/3 of our city’s population.”
He said with well over 400 overdose deaths in Jacksonville last year alone, the effects of fentanyl on the community has been “devastating.”
Waters praised the efforts of the investigators in Operation Trigger Switch.
He explained that gun switches, which can render a firearm fully automatic, make guns more lethal because the bullets continually fire until the trigger is released.
An ATF agent said they are seeing trigger switches almost weekly now. He explained that they can be made of plastic, metal, or a combination of the two and can be designed easily by a 3D printer, making them more dangerous.
“It goes in the back of the gun so it keeps the trigger from resetting after a trigger pull,” he explained. “They are prevalent out on the streets.”
Waters said the key is to prevent them from ever being used in the first place by going after the sellers.
“I will address those criminals who continue to poison and promote violence in our community,” Waters said. “We will use every available resource to stop you from selling that stuff in our community and to stop you from profiting off death in our city.”
Waters said these types of targeted enforcement efforts are producing a slight decrease in violent crime, and he hopes JSO’s aggressive efforts will make a bigger difference.
According to News4JAX records, there have been 33 homicides so far this year, and 23 of those are murders. For the same period in 2022, the city had seen 36 homicides with 31 of those being murders.
But the number of people shot is down 36% from the same time last year.
According to our records, so far this year, 65 people have been shot in Jacksonville. Through the same period in 2022, 101 people had been shot.