May 14, 2008 10:12 am US/Pacific
Man Shot To Death Near UC Berkeley Campus
BERKELEY (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ―
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Evidence markers on the pavement at the scene of the shooting in Berkeley.
CBS
A man was fatally shot Tuesday afternoon in a parking lot a block south from the University of California, Berkeley campus in what was the second killing near the university this month.
Berkeley police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss said the victim was a 33-year-old Berkeley man who was not affiliated with the university.
While his name was not immediately released by police, relatives identified the victim to CBS 5 as Maceo Smith, a father of three sons.
Smith was shot in front of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive on Durant Avenue just east of Bowditch Street shortly before 4 p.m. and then managed to stagger diagonally across the street to a parking lot at 2542 Durant Ave., just west of Bowditch.
Kusmiss said the man collapsed between two parked cars in the lot, which is near the Top Dog hot dog restaurant at 2534 Durant Ave., and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Apparently some kind of argument and "verbal exchange with derogatory comments" broke out between two young men prior to the shooting, said Kusmiss.
Some witness told police that the victim and the suspect exchanged gunfire but police haven't determined for certain if the victim was armed and no guns were recovered.
Investigators were trying to determine if a man who went to an Oakland hospital to be treated for an apparent gunshot wound a short time later was the shooter or another victim.
Kusmiss said witnesses told police that they saw a man with a gun fleeing the scene in a silver Cadillac.
She said an officer spotted the car in downtown Berkeley and
followed it to eastbound Interstate Highway 580, where it headed toward
Highland Hospital in Oakland.
Kusmiss said several hundred people were in the area of the shooting enjoying the warm weather when it occurred.
Police blocked off several streets near the crime scene for several hours and a group of nearly 50 people lingered nearby, including apparent distraught family members and friends of the victim.
About two hours after the shooting incident, a man who said he was the victim's father yelled to the crowd, "My son got shot and I just found out now that my son is dead. We're trying to find out what's going on. If your child got shot, you would want to see him."
The victim's body lay covered in a white sheet in the parking lot for several hours before it finally was removed.
The shooting shattered the quiet of an otherwise idyllic spring day filled with graduation ceremonies and parties.
A number of graduating seniors dressed in black caps and gowns and accompanied by their parents walked near the shooting location, focusing on their graduation festivities instead of the grim scene.
Kusmiss said the incident was Berkeley's fifth homicide so far this year; there was only one homicide at this time last year and were only five in all of 2007.
Earlier this month, 21-year-old UC Berkeley fraternity member
Christopher Wootton was fatally stabbed during a scuffle on fraternity row.
"This is very disheartening," Kusmiss said, noting that Wootton was killed May 3 only a few blocks away from the location of Tuesday's shooting.
Berkeley police urged anyone with information regarding the shooting to contact homicide detail at (510) 981-5741.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press and Bay City News contributed to this report.)
CBS 5 CrimeWatch
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