SAN BERNARDINO–A little more than an hour before midnight on December 31, Jason Kenneth Anderson of Victorville became the 47th homicide victim in the city of San Bernardino in 2012 when he was gunned down at 10:50 p.m. at 677 W 28th St.. The hail of bullets that felled Anderson injured three others. The assailant or assailants, whose identities at this time are unknown to investigators, remain(s) at large. Officers believe the crime may have been gang related.
The total San Bernardino murder count for 2012 did not reach the city’s record high of 58 killings in 2005. The death count for the just-concluded year nonetheless eclipsed the 30 killings that took place in San Bernardino in 2011.
Police say they have solved 28 of the 47 murder cases, that is, they have identified who they believe to be the perpetrators and uncovered in each of those cases what is considered to be a motive. Nineteen of the other cases remain unsolved at this time.
According to the police, seven of the murders were gang-related; three arose from domestic disputes; four were robberies; nine involved a dispute or confrontation that escalated into murder; five of the killings involved a complex mix of factors; and in 19 of the cases the motive for the slayings is unknown.
A handgun or handguns were used in 38 of the instances. A shotgun was used in one of the killings. Two slayings came about from the use of blunt force. Knives were used in five of the homicides. Hands were the instrument of death in the two others.
Thirty-nine of the victims were males; eight were female. Twenty-one of the victims were Hispanic; eighteen were African-American; and eight were Caucasian.
May was the deadliest month, when a total of 12 people died at the hands of another or others. Between April 28 and May 7, a period of nine days, eight people were murdered in the city.
In addition, there were five fatal officer-involved shootings and five other homicides that investigators ruled as justifiable self-defense in San Bernardino in 2012.
With deadly 2012 just concluded, 2013 began on an inauspicious note. Less than two hours of the new year had elapsed when at 1:52 a.m. San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies were summoned to a report of shots fired in the 7000 block of North Conejo Drive in unincorporated San Bernardino. There they found the city’s first homicide victim of the young year, Mark Mancha of San Bernardino, dead from multiple upper body gunshot wounds.
On January 2 at about 1:30 p.m., a man was found by San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies in the 8060 block of Sunnyside Avenue in an unincorporated portion of San Bernardino, shortly after they were summoned there by a call of shots fired. The victim, who has not been identified pending notification of next of kin, had been shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene by responding paramedics. According to sheriff’s detective Steve Pennington, Donald Bryson has been arrested for that murder.