DETROIT – Agents used social media posts, shell casings, and three separate crimes to link a Detroit man to a machine gun, they said.
Havier Racari Jackson, 18, of Detroit, is named in a criminal complaint that was unsealed on June 3, 2024.
Officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives said they investigated Jackson in early March because they believed he had been in possession of a Glock 30 .45-caliber pistol with a machine gun conversion device that made it fire automatically.
March 3 shooting in Detroit
Agents said their investigation of Jackson included a shooting the night of March 3, 2024.
Detroit police were called at 8:47 p.m. to the area of West 7 Mile Road and Asbury Park on the city’s west side.
A man told officers that he had stopped for a red light at the intersection and gotten into a short argument with four men in a black Cadillac sedan.
When the man left the intersection, he drove to his nearby home and backed into the driveway, he said. The Cadillac pulled up in front of his driveway, and two of the men fired gunshots at him from the car, the criminal complaint says.
The Cadillac sped off to the east, the man said.
The man wasn’t injured, but police said they found multiple bullet holes in his car.
Two .45-caliber shell casings were in the middle of the street. Evidence technicians entered them into the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network.
Further investigation revealed the bullet holes in the man’s car came from two different calibers of ammunition.
ShotSpotter also captured location info that supported the man’s story. The sound included gunfire from one automatic firearm and one semi-automatic firearm, an ATF agent said.
Related arrest on March 7 in Detroit
Officials said they linked a man only identified as “RS” to Jackson after RS was taken into custody on March 7.
The criminal complaint says RS ran from Detroit police officers at 8:08 p.m. March 7 after he and two others were seen with guns at the Asian Corned Beef restaurant on Wyoming Avenue on Detroit’s west side.
During a foot chase around the outside of the restaurant, RS fell down next to a semi truck, and an officer heard the sound of metal hitting the pavement, officials said.
When RS was taken into custody, his right hand was bleeding, officials said. Another officer found a bloody subcompact Glock 30 .45-caliber handgun lying on the other side of the semi truck, he said.
RS later admitted that he had been carrying the gun, but said it didn’t belong to him.
Agents said the pistol had a machine gun conversion device -- or a Switch -- affixed to it, which made it function as an automatic weapon.
Linking March 3 shooting to March 7 arrest, murder
Detroit police submitted test fired cartridge cases from the Glock 30 to the NIBIN, and that connected the gun to the casings found on March 3, officials said.
The criminal complaint suggests the Glock found outside the restaurant was one of the two guns used to fire shots outside the Detroit man’s house near West 7 Mile Road and Asbury Park.
The test shots also linked the Glock to a murder scene from 12:37 a.m. March 7, 2024, in Detroit. That crime happened about 19 hours before the gun was found with RS, according to the complaint.
Instagram videos
ATF agents received a search warrant for RS’s Instagram account on March 19.
About four minutes before the shooting on March 3, RS had posted a video on Instagram that showed Jackson holding a pistol with a machine gun conversion device, officials said.
Jackson was riding in a Cadillac sedan, which matches the car involved in the March 3 shooting, the criminal complaint says.
An ATF agent said he believes the gun Jackson is holding in the Instagram video matches the one recovered on March 7.
About 10 minutes after the March 3 shooting, around 8:15 p.m., RS posted another video showing a Smith and Wesson M&P 15 rifle, according to the ATF agent.
“On my momma we just did that to that (expletive),” RS said in the video, the complaint says.
Jackson can be seen using an iPhone to record the occupants of the Cadillac, and a third person told RS to stop recording.
‘I can drop a body’
In another video from RS moments later, Jackson, RS, and the third man can be seen, as well as the rifle.
“On Sunday, I can drop a body,” RS said, according to the complaint. “I can merch.”
ATF agents said “merch” means to “defeat overwhelmingly, beat up, kill, or eliminate.”
March 3, 2024, was a Sunday.
At the time, RS was on a GPS tether as part of court-mandated supervision, but the tether wasn’t working on March 3 because it hadn’t been charged, officials said.
Gun registry, phone records
An ATF Industry Operations Investigator searched the Firearms Licensing System and found that Jackson and the other two men in the Cadillac had no registered licenses to possess the guns seen in the videos.
RS and the third man were both convicted felons and not allowed to possess guns.
Cellphone records for RS and Jackson showed that their phones were in the area of the home where shots were fired on March 3.
Instagram videos show that they were in a Cadillac together at the time of that shooting, agents said.
Instagram Live videos
RS broadcasted a live video on Instagram at 11:29 p.m. March 4, 2024, while in a sedan with Jackson, officials said.
Jackson held up a Glock pistol with a Switch attached several times during the video, according to the criminal complaint.
The next day, RS broadcasted another live video that included Jackson holding a Glock with a Switch, officials said. He “brandished” it at least twice and made a machine gun sound effect, according to the complaint.
On March 6, 2024, RS broadcasted an Instagram Live video with Jackson. While they were talking, Jackson held a Glock with a Switch, officials said.
Recorded jail phone call
Jackson called an Oakland County Jail inmate around 6:40 p.m. March 6, 2024, and referenced having a .45-caliber pistol with a machine gun conversion device, the complaint says.
Earlier in the call, the inmate said Jackson had a .45-caliber pistol that “goes (machine gun sound).”
That phone call happened six hours before the March 7 murder.
Conclusion
The criminal complaint concludes that Jackson knowingly possessed a gun equipped with a machine gun conversion device.
It accuses him of illegal possession of a machine gun.