Tampa road rage shooting suspect accused of striking child will remain in jail until trial

TAMPA, Fla. - The man accused of firing six times into a family’s car and sending a four-year-old girl to the hospital will remain in jail until his trial after a bond hearing in Hillsborough County on Tuesday. 

According to Tampa police, 34-year-old James D. Jackson became irate with another woman while driving in East Tampa on January 30. When he and the woman pulled up to a red light at 50th Street and Melburne Boulevard, police say Jackson fired multiple rounds into her car.

Crime scene tape and police cars at the scene of a 'road rage' shooting that injured a 4-year-old girl. 

A mother and her boyfriend were inside the car as well as her children. Everyone survived, but a four-year-old was struck by a bullet and treated at a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

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Jackson then led Tampa police on a short-lived chase, where he allegedly tossed the handgun he was not legally allowed to have in his possession.

Keinesia Gillette, the mother of the four-year-old wounded in the shooting last week, was still shaken when she appeared in court during the Tuesday hearing. It was the first time she had come face-to-face with the man accused of pulling the trigger. 

"He was looking dead at me with a gun, literally out the window, pointing it at me," she recalled. 

Gillette testified during Jackson's bond hearing, saying she was driving with her boyfriend and her children in the car on Jan. 30. She was on Melburne Boulevard, approaching 50th Street when she merged in front of the suspect's vehicle. 

She said that angered him. 

Gillette said she tried to stay calm and ignore his aggressive driving, but suddenly, she was dodging bullets. 

"I heard, ‘pop, pop, pop,’ so my kids started screaming. I didn’t know what to do," explained Gillette. 

She said Jackson wasn’t finished. 

"When I looked to see if my kids were okay, I saw him roll up a little more, and I look dead at him, and he had the gun dead out the window and looked dead at me and shot some more times," Gillette said. 

The mother of three immediately checked on her terrified children, who were all screaming, except for her four-year-old daughter, who was noticeably quiet. 

"Something said look at her clothes, so when I pulled up her jacket, I saw all this blood, and I went crazy," explained the tearful mother. 

Jackson, 34, is a twice-convicted felon and has served extensive time in Florida’s prison system, including a 10-year stint for attempted murder and robbery with a deadly weapon, then later another two-year sentence after he was convicted of aggravated battery.

Jackson is once again facing an attempted murder charge along with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery great bodily harm, discharging of a firearm from a vehicle, felon in possession of a firearm (2 counts), possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, tampering with physical evidence, fleeing to elude, resisting officer without violence, possession of cannabis, possession of cannabis with intent to sell/deliver, possession of drug paraphernalia.