CANTON, MS – A brazen shootout on a Ridgeland highway led to a 63-month federal sentence for Tyrone Diario Lewis, 32, of Canton, Mississippi. Lewis was convicted of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, a charge stemming from a November 4, 2021, incident where his vehicle exchanged gunfire with another on Highland Colony Parkway.
Ridgeland Police responded to a barrage of 911 calls reporting the shooting near Old Agency Road. They quickly located Lewis’s vehicle riddled with bullet holes on I-55 South. A search of the surrounding woods uncovered four firearms, including a dangerous AR-style pistol – all attempted to be concealed by Lewis and his passengers. Investigators determined Lewis possessed all four weapons and that one of them was used during the exchange.
The incident wasn’t Lewis’s first brush with the law. He already had a prior felony conviction for armed robbery, automatically disqualifying him from legally owning a firearm under federal law. Despite this, Lewis was caught red-handed with an arsenal, proving a clear disregard for the law and a continued threat to public safety.
A federal grand jury indicted Lewis on April 19, 2022, and he ultimately pleaded guilty on January 26, 2023, to the charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The case was a joint effort between the Ridgeland Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam T. Stuart prosecuted the case, highlighting the Department of Justice’s commitment to cracking down on violent crime. This prosecution falls under the umbrella of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a federal program designed to reduce violent crime through targeted enforcement and community-based prevention initiatives.
The PSN program, a cornerstone of the Justice Department’s violent crime reduction strategy, focuses on the most dangerous offenders and pairs enforcement with reentry programs aimed at breaking the cycle of violence. While a 63-month sentence offers some measure of justice, it remains to be seen if this will truly keep Lewis, and the weapons he so readily possessed, off the streets of Mississippi.
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