Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Jamarri Alley Thagard, 18, was arrested last night and charged with armed robbery after allegedly stealing an Xbox and gun at gunpoint during a Gainesville Marketplace transaction.

The victim told a Gainesville Police Department officer that he went to Tiger Bay Apartments at about 8:54 p.m. last Wednesday night after a Facebook account (later deleted) offered to buy an Xbox he had advertised for sale on Gainesville Marketplace.

The victim’s car is reportedly equipped with front and rear cameras that capture audio, and the cameras reportedly showed two black male suspects approaching his car from the rear. One suspect wore a white hoodie, tan pants, and bright yellow slides. The other suspect wore all black, with red shoes and a face mask.

The suspect wearing a white hoodie put a gun to the victim’s head and threatened to kill him, then the suspects stole the victim’s Xbox, $200 in cash, and a tan Taurus handgun; they also forced the victim to send $500 via CashApp to a specific account. The suspects then fled on foot.

The victim searched Instagram for users with an account name matching the CashApp account name and showed the officer an account that showed a picture of Thagard; the profile picture for the CashApp account also appears to be Thagard. Thagard reportedly previously lived at the address that was given to the victim for the transaction.

Officers reportedly found Thagard at a different address at Tiger Bay Apartments yesterday; at the time of his arrest, he was reportedly wearing bright yellow slides that matched the slides seen in the victim’s car video. After receiving consent to search the apartment where Thagard was arrested, officers reportedly found the victim’s stolen gun.

Thagard has been charged with robbery with a deadly weapon, grand theft of a firearm, possession of a firearm by someone who was convicted as a juvenile of a crime that would be a felony for an adult, and unlawful use of a two-way communications device.

Thagard was convicted of burglary as a juvenile in January 2021. He was booked into the Alachua County Jail in December 2023 on charges of child abuse and battery by a person detained in a prison or jail facility; he was released after a judge ruled on January 23, 2024, that he had been held for 40 days and no official charges had been filed. The charges were dropped the next day.

Judge George Wright set bail at $70,000 on the new charges.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.