Coroner identifies 16-year-old high school student found dead on Lexington road
A 16-year-old Lexington high school student was found dead in a roadway from a gunshot wound early Tuesday morning, according to the Lexington Police Department and a spokesperson for Fayette County Public Schools.
Police received a report just before 2 a.m. of shots fired in the 700 block of Rambling Creek Drive, near Liberty Road and Liberty Elementary School.
Police said the boy, identified by the Fayette County Coroner’s Office as Arsenio Jackson Jr., was found shot in the road and declared dead at the scene.
Arsenio was a junior at Henry Clay High School, according to an FCPS spokesperson.
Counseling services will be available at the school Tuesday.
“Gun violence in our city of any kind is tragic and unacceptable, especially when it takes the life of a young person,” Mayor Linda Gorton said in a statement. “My prayers, and the prayers of our entire community, are with all of our families who have lost a child to violence. Your loss is a loss for all of us.”
Devine Carama, director of One Lexington, said he had met Arsenio through a middle school mentoring group, and one of the city’s crisis advocates had recently connected with him to offer mentorship.
Carama said he received several calls from middle and high school students who live near the scene of the shooting who were saddened by what happened.
On Tuesday evening, staff and volunteers from One Lexington gathered on Rambling Creek Drive to offer community support, as they do any time there is a shooting in a Lexington neighborhood.
They knocked on doors and handed out bags of food.
Sometimes, Carama said, people want help, but “they’re not going to talk about it unless you go to them.”
“A solid response can help mitigate retaliatory violence too,” he said.
Arsenio was declared dead at 2:50 a.m. from a gunshot wound. The coroner’s office would not say how many times he was shot.
An autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow at the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Frankfort, according to the coroner’s office.
No other information about the homicide was released. Police said detectives from the Personal Crimes Section are investigating the shooting.
Anyone with information about the shooting is encouraged to contact Lexington police at 859-258-3600. Anonymous tips can be submitted to Bluegrass Crime Stoppers by calling 859-253-2020 or by filling out an online form.
This is the third homicide of the year and the first since Jan. 19, according to Lexington police data. A suspect has been arrested in both of the previous homicide cases.
Carama had a request for Lexington residents Tuesday night.
“Gun violence affects all of us,” he said. “My call to everybody is just to do something.”
He said it could be as simple as volunteering as a hall monitor in a middle school.
“You don’t have to be a violence prevention expert to reach out.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2025 at 8:37 AM.
