JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Days after a 17-year-old was killed in a shooting in the Murray Hill neighborhood, police announced the arrest of an 18-year-old in the murder case.
Police say Josef D. Madison is the person who pulled the trigger on Tuesday, hitting Blaise Conner multiple times.
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Conner was found on the sidewalk in front of Murray Hill Baptist Church on Post Street near Dancy Street around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. He died at the scene.
Investigators said they identified Madison as the shooter and he was found Thursday and charged with murder. He appeared in court Friday and was ordered to be held without bond. His arraignment was set for March 7.
According to Madison’s arrest report, there was an ongoing feud between Madison and Conner, who had one or maybe two recent fist fights.
One of the fights, which was described in the report from a video provided to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, happened at Murray Hill Park.
The arrest report also says that a witness told JSO that Madison and Conner encountered each other on Post Street on the night of the murder. Words were exchanged, and then three shots were fired, the witness said.
JSO picked up Madison where he works Thursday and took him downtown for an interview. Then he was booked for second-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a felony juvenile delinquent.
According to court documents, in 2022, when Madison was 16, he was charged with domestic battery on his disabled father. Later in 2022, when he was 17, Madison was charged with aggravated assault with a firearm, battery, carrying a concealed firearm and discharging a firearm in public. In that incident, according to police, Madison went to Murray Hill Park for an arranged fight with a teenage girl, punched her, pulled the gun and fired a shot into the air.
News4JAX Crime and Safety expert, Tom Hackney, said the increase in deadly shootings is concerning, especially with the youth.
“It seems like if this was in relation to a fight and this fight ended up with somebody being shot, that’s an extreme measure obviously and you don’t want anything like that to happen… and it’s frightening that it happens in a neighborhood with houses very close by,” Hackney said.