Deadly Way

A 21-year-old San Bernardino man is dead following a late-night shooting in San Bernardino that left another man wounded, San Bernardino Police officials said.

Adante Whittiker was pronounced dead Friday morning after being taken to Loma Linda University Medical Center, police authorities confirmed Friday.

Investigators currently have no suspect description and say both shooting victims were reluctant to give much information to detectives.

Police received a call at 11:37 p.m. regarding two shooting victims in the 1200 block of Sierra Way, said San Bernardino police Sgt. Siobahn Sansone.

The victims were located in the 1300 block of Sierra Way. Whittiker had been shot several times in the upper body and the unidentified second man had been hit in the leg, authorities said.

Both men were taken to LLUMC where Whittiker later died. The man wounded in the leg was later released.

Goddammit.............this was my dude Gerald aka YG Devil they got tonight.....I'm not going to say much, but something real nasty is brewing in the streets and I hope it stops before it gets out of control. His momma had just passed away a few months ago and now he's gone too. Sierra Way is a death trap.



Man shot, killed in San Bernardino

By Beatriz E. Valenzuela, Staff Writer
Posted: 04/12/2013 08:27:05 PM PDT

SAN BERNARDINO -- For the second time in two nights, San Bernardino Police homicide detectives are investigating a fatal shooting in the 1200 block of N. Sierra Way, both shootings occurred 19 hours apart.

"At this point it really is too early to tell if the shootings are related," said Sgt. Rich Hale Friday evening.

Around 7 p.m., police received one call reporting a man had been shot outside an apartment complex on N. Sierra Way, said Hale.

Police and paramedics found the unidentified man lying outside with a gunshot wound to the chest and another to the left shoulder, according to dispatch reports.

Paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene.

Members of the police's gang detail are assisting homicide investigators with the case, Hale said.

Less than 24 hours prior to Friday night's fatal shooting, two men were shot in the same block, according to investigators. One of the men, identified as 21-year-old Adante Whittiker of San Bernardino, died Friday morning. The second man was struck in the leg.

Shit is wild i stayed over there 4 a min off pershing the more calm side. Shit was still dangerous tho, my lil bro got shot fuccin round wit our rele's over there. We almost lost my lil nigga. Srry bout yo boy folks, hopefully he had the chance to make peace cuz heavans a hell of a lot better then sierra way.

Wow. RIP Devil. My dude was a dope rapper who had alot of passion. What's more is he was definitely a gangsta but he was a real one. He never banged on someone who didn't deserve it and was very passionate about San Bernardino. I can remember several times dude sitting on his car posted on Lugo and 9th with a AK in his lap...nobody fucked with o'l boy. I can remember one time whempn a dude was talking greasy about SB and Devil just happened to be walking by. He quickly doubled back and was like "what you say about San Berdino niggaz?" The dude who was talking shit was a rider himself but folded and took back his words...real nigga sorry for your loss Nyte. And for the record to anyone reading this...it's only a death trap if you serving over there other than that most residents actually get by...I have never heard off an innocent bystander or random person getting in trouble in that area...it's always bangers and dealers.

Man......I'm tripping off of this. I was just with him at the Easter picnic in Perris Hill park a couple weeks ago. He was definitely a real one, but sometimes I felt like he was just far too careless for his own good.

He used to go into neighborhoods where he knew he shouldn't have been and really didn't give a second thought about it. That was his biggest downfall. If he wanted to go there, he simply went, and nothing and nobody could detain him. And he rode solo most of the time. But this last situation was different. He went from his usual care free attitude to just straight up reckless, and this last decision cost him his life.

Someone was killed over there about a month prior to this, and word began circulating that the shooter was supposedly connected with DH. Sierra Way has a DH presence, and even a lot of little claimers running around over there. Several incidents resulting in loss of life in that area of town has led to large scale hatred for DH and anybody claiming it. Dudes know they shouldn't be over there, but some people refuse to listen. There isn't any real money to be made over there and never has been. That spot is a trap that these cats keep getting sucked into.

Dev should not have been there, especially a day after someone else had just gotten taken out. Tensions are high to begin with, and incidents like that just serve to add more fuel to an already raging fire. I don't know if he wasn't aware or if this was a foolish act of bravado, or what........... but his poor decision making has a lot of people upset/hurt right now.

SAN BERNARDINO -- Across the street from a liquor store and a bar near Base Line and Sierra Way sits small tan-colored apartment complexes and older homes, guarded by black and white wrought-iron gates. Two clusters of candles lie less than six feet apart inside one of the complexes - a tribute to two lives lost in back-to-back shootings.

Here in the 1200 block of North Sierra Way, some residents say there's a war brewing between local and Los Angeles gangs. Other people say the problem isn't the locals - it's criminals from other cities coming in and stirring up trouble.

Residents agree on one point: Violence in the area is out of control.

"It's hard," said resident Yvette Ballard. "I just want to leave. I wish they'd shut down all the apartments on Sierra."

Tensions reached a boiling point late April 11 when two men were shot in the area. Adante Whittiker, 21, died the next morning at Loma Linda University Medical Center. The other man survived the attack.

Police say friends were holding a memorial barbecue April 12 for Whittiker when Jerald Lee Belton, 30, arrived in the area and was shot and killed.

It's unclear whether Belton came to the neighborhood to attend the barbecue, but his uncle, Fred Jones, said the man had a barbecue in the back of his vehicle when he left their home in Rialto.

Belton and Whittiker were friends.

Police have no suspects in either case.

"There were 60 to 80 people out there at the second shooting and probably close to that at the first shooting," said San Bernardino police Sgt. Gary Robertson. "Even the surviving victim in the first shooting isn't being cooperative."

To stay or go

The last straw for Fred Jones was the gunshot victim who collapsed in front of his house last year.

He can't remember the man's name, but the only person to die in the 1200 block of North Sierra Way in 2012 was 29-year-old Maurice Major on May 27.

Jones says he practically raised Belton because his mother was a drug addict and no one knew who his father was. They lived on Sierra Way near where the shootings occurred until about six months ago.

"The area was too bad. I had cameras all outside my house, crackheads breaking into your house and cars, and shootings. My granddaughter lives with me, so it was too much," Jones said. "I had to move."

Thomas O'Keefe, 34, who knew Whittiker and has lived in the area more than 10 years, said if it wasn't for "outside influences" the area wouldn't be as bad as it has been recently.

He says it's not uncommon to see children having water balloon fights, or families gathered for barbecues on Sierra Way.

"We're in the slums, we're across the street from a liquor store, so there's drinking and girlfriend problems, but nothing like this," he said of the shootings.

A woman who lives with her daughter and granddaughter near where the shootings occurred said she feels safe "at times," but seeing the double memorial sites nearby is unsettling. She declined to reveal her name out of fear of retaliation.

"Right now, financially, it's impossible for us to move," she said.

'They didn't have it coming'

Belton was a budding rap artist, a former newspaper deliveryman and a father of two girls who had a son on the way. Whittiker was an only child who ran errands for his mother and took care of her when she was sick, friends said.

"It's a shock to hear someone you've known since the sixth grade is here one day and gone the next," said Whittiker's friend, Breanna Murphy.

Ganesha Boone, Belton's girlfriend, said he was a man who loved children.

"He was very protective," she said. "If it was a loved one, there was nothing that was going to happen to them."

O'Keefe said he didn't think either victim had gang ties.

"They didn't have it coming," he said. "They were good people."

Jones, 50, said his nephew was present and also fired upon when Whittiker was shot, but he escaped unwounded in the first incident.

Sometime that night, Belton lost his cell phone and got into an argument with several people in the area while trying to retrieve it, his uncle said.

The next day, Jones repeatedly called his nephew, but couldn't reach him because of the missing phone.

Jones suspects Belton returned to the area April 12 in search of his phone, despite friends warning him that it wasn't safe.

The two shootings occurring so close together and within a short amount of time was shocking to residents and even police.

"This was kind of an explosion that occurred right there," Robertson said. "And the victim lying in almost the same location as the victim in the previous shooting, it's kind of unusual."

They're also reminiscent of a pair Westside shootings from 2012, where a man was shot at the memorial site of another homicide victim.

Michael Espino, 21, was found shot dead inside a truck in the 200 block of South Lenore Avenue on May 13. Gregorio Gonzales, 19, was shot while paying his respects to Espino on May 29 in the same cul-de-sac.

Policing a troubled neighborhood

Some residents say there's not enough of a police presence in the 1200 block of North Sierra Way.

"They're not really here to fix the problem. They're just here to clean up afterward," O'Keefe said.

Police disagree.

San Bernardino officers have been talking to residents on probation and parole, making sure they're complying with the terms of their release and seeing if they have any information on the shootings.

"We've stepped up our resources and have put some additional officers in there to be visible and as a deterrent to prevent that from happening in the future," Robertson said.

On Friday, in response to the back-to-back killings, San Bernardino gang-enforcement officers swept into the area, assisted by Fontana police and sheriff's deputies.

Their goal was to take guns, drugs and wanted felons off the street.

It was a busy night.

Their work included arresting a felon alleged to have tried to steal a pair of shoes from a store on Ninth Street; detaining a man and a woman on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs; responding to a report of a man repeatedly stabbed in front of a PaPa John's. By 1 a.m. Saturday, 36 people had been arrested, one gun was recovered, an all-points bulletin had gone out for the stabbing suspect, and drugs had been confiscated.

Tension remains.

Gangs claim control over little pockets of areas surrounding the neighborhood, but not the 1200 block of North Sierra Way.

"No clear-cut gang is claiming that entire area," Robertson said.

Based on his many years living in the area and talking to residents, Jones says the violence is the result of gangs grappling for control.

"It's between the gangs out here and the gangs from LA trying to take over that area for drug sales," he said.

Elizabeth Collins stood with a group of Belton's friends near the memorial sites Thursday, unsure how to come to grips with the two deaths.

She is no stranger to the effects of gang violence. Her son's cousin was Amarion Adams, a 6-year-old boy who was killed in a San Bernardino drive-by shooting in 2010.

"It's really unacceptable," she said. "I'm considering moving to Nevada. I can't raise my kids here."

So was this PDL VS. DHB or what? they claim the guys were friends. If so did they jus get caught n the middle or is it another hood involved too?

Not PDL, and they're not really in that area like that anymore either. I don't know where the young dude who got killed the night before was from, but he's not originally from SB. But as far as what's being said in that article, all I can say is that a lot those people don't even know what they're talking about...smh. And yeah, there's more than one hood involved.