Harvard shooting leads to 6-year sentence in drugs, gun plea for Elgin man who police say tried to flee scene

A man with a previous felony conviction pleaded guilty Monday to gun and drug charges related to a shooting in Harvard last year and was sentenced to six years in prison, according to court documents.

Tyrone Jones, 37, of Elgin, pleaded guilty to possession of less than five grams of methamphetamine and to being a felon in possession of a weapon, judgment orders signed by Judge Tiffany Davis in the McHenry County court show.

Jones was sentenced to six years on each conviction to be served concurrently, the orders said. He is to serve half the prison time followed by six months mandatory supervised release and is receiving credit for 456 days in the county jail.

Harvard’s police and fire protection district responded to a call at about 6:30 p.m. May 4, 2024, to a home in the 100 block of West Brown Street for a report of a person shot. Officers arrived to find a 39-year-old man with a gunshot wound in his right foot in the front yard, according to a news release from the Harvard Police Department.

The person shot was taken to Javon Bea Hospital-Riverside in Rockford and was treated and released, according to the release.

Police flanked the back of the house and Jones “attempted to flee,” Assistant State’s Attorney Julio Cantre said at Jones’s initial court appearance last year where he was denied pretrial release. When he was caught, police searched him and found he had two plastic baggies containing cocaine and methamphetamine, Cantre said.

Police found “a small, clear, plastic baggie containing a white/blue powder-like substance in his left pants pocket weighing 3.6 grams that was field tested presumed positive for the presence of cocaine and a plastic bag containing a clear rock substance weighing 2 grams that tested positive for Methamphetamine. A black-in-color scale was also found in his left pocket,” according to the complaint.

Inside the house, police found 81 oxycodone pills and eight individually packaged baggies with a white powdery substance that tested positive for cocaine and fentanyl with a total weight of 4.6 grams, Cantre said. Police also found Jones was in possession of “a black colored .32 caliber break action revolver, unknown make or model,” the complaint states, adding the weapon was not legal for Jones to possess because of a 2015 felony conviction in Kane County, according to the complaint.

At the time of the alleged incident, Jones was on pretrial release on charges in Winnebago County, the prosecutor said.

In exchange for his guilty plea, additional, more serious charges were dismissed, including aggravated discharge of a firearm and aggravated battery, Class X felonies. Criminal trespass to a residence and resisting police officer or corrections officer charges also were dismissed, court records show.

Charges in Winnebago County of driving under the influence of alcohol, reckless driving and traffic offenses are still pending, Winnebago County Court records show.