A Jacksonville double murder earlier this month was part of a $20,000 gang hit, according to an arrest warrant.
The warrant provides details behind last week’s arrests of Ju’Quan Mills, 22, and Diamond Harris, 23.
The Oct. 6 double murder on Kylan Drive near Moncrief Road was a high-dollar contract killing, detectives wrote in their reports.
Detectives believe Harris lured one of the victims, 19-year-old Antonio Tillie Junior, who thought he was meeting her for a date.
Investigators accuse Mills of killing Tillie instead, collecting half of the bounty — $10,000.
Police wrote they’ve identified another suspect involved in the murder, but they’re still trying to track them down.
Tillie’s Uber driver was caught up in the violence and also killed, shot in the car he was driving to make a living. He’s been identified as 31-year-old Bryant Grund.
“He’s caught literally in the middle of this 20k hit, unbeknownst to him,” said former JSO director Tom Hackney, a long-time homicide detective.
He said it shows the senselessness of gang violence.
“In order to successfully prosecute a case like this, you want to be able to answer as many questions as you possibly can and that does get spider webs out from there, not only who completed the hit but who set the hit,” Hackney noted.
Jacksonville police told News4JAX earlier this year they were tracking 32 active gangs with nearly 600 members, they’re responsible for a large number of the city’s shootings.
MORE | Guns, Drugs & Gangs: An inside look at how Jacksonville police address violent crime
“The solution is we have to be more involved,” said AJ Jordan, the vice president of Mad Dads Jacksonville, a nonprofit that hopes to prevent violence.
AJ Jordan with Mad Dads is calling on the community as gangs continue to wreak havoc in the city. He said there’s a vacuum effect where new gang members replace ones who’ve been arrested or killed.
“It’s always been one down, one up,” Jordan said. “There’s always somebody to take their place. It comes back to the community. When one pops back up, we have to turn them in, to get them off the street.”
He said there are many causes for gang activity.
“I think it’s a combination or breakdown of the home, not having fathers in the home, mothers working, not having enough to do to keep them busy,” Jordan pointed out. “I talked to one [gang member] a while back and he knows the consequences of it but he said it’s worth it, because they get a lot of money really quick.”
News4JAX reached out to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for comment. A spokesman said it’s still an open and active investigation, so JSO won’t be commenting, but he said detectives are hard at work.
Monday, News4JAX featured a local pastor who goes door to door checking on troubled teens, offering them jobs and resources if they get out of the gang life. He said he’s making progress, showing them a life outside of crime.
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