United States Attorney Richard W. Moore of the Southern District of Alabama announces today that United States District Judge William H. Steele sentenced Daryl Dewayne Struggs, 35, a resident of Selma, Alabama, to imprisonment for eighty-four months for being a felon in possession of a firearm. As part of the sentence, the judge ordered that Struggs undergo three years of supervised release after finishing his term of imprisonment, pay a $100 mandatory special assessment, and undergo substance abuse and mental health treatment as directed by the U.S. Probation Office.
According to documents filed with the court as part of his guilty plea and the court’s pronouncements at sentencing, Struggs is a convicted felon who is barred by federal law from knowingly possessing firearms or ammunition. He was previously convicted in the Circuit Court of Dallas County, Alabama of Unlawful Possession of Marijuana in the First Degree, Burglary in the Third Degree, and Robbery in the First Degree.
Around 8:18pm on March 28, 2017, Selma Police Department officers responded to an address on Twenty Foot Avenue in Selma concerning gun shots fired and two shooting victims. According to witnesses, the suspects were driving a blue Lincoln Town car. Around 10:55pm, Selma Police Department Detective Willie Calhoun was driving to the crime scene when he saw a blue Lincoln Town car speeding on Highway 80 toward the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. He stopped the vehicle. Struggs was the passenger and co-defendant Danny Jamal Tate was the driver.
Officers searched the vehicle. They recovered one round of ammunition from between the driver’s seat and passenger’s seat. Under the passenger seat, officers found a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol. When Calhoun found the firearm, the slide was locked to the rear and the magazine was empty. Officers also found a second Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol in the vehicle. This pistol was loaded with a round in the chamber and thirty-four rounds in the extended magazine. Struggs knowingly possessed the two pistols, both of which were manufactured outside the State of Alabama.
At sentencing, Senior Judge Steele observed that the firearms were used in the shooting and underscored the serious nature of Struggs’s offense. Tate and Struggs have pending state charges in connection with the shooting.
On July 26, 2018, a federal grand jury for the Southern District of Alabama charged Struggs and Tate with one count each of being a felon in possession in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). On Sept. 14, 2018, Struggs pleaded guilty before Senior Judge Steele to being a felon in possession.
Tate remains at large. He has a pending federal warrant for his arrest.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Selma Police Department investigated the case. Assistant United States Attorney Sinan Kalayoglu prosecuted the case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
