Rap concert promoter from Texas killed during Bay Bridge shooting

OAKLAND, Calif. - The California Highway Patrol is looking for the gunman responsible for a fatal shooting early Monday morning  on the lower deck of the Bay Bridge where a rap concert promoter was killed in his SUV while driving with two passengers, who were also injured.

All that's been publicly revealed is that the suspect vehicle could be a gray or silver sedan or SUV, said CHP Officer Pedro Santiago.

The San Francisco Medical Examiner's office identified the driver of a rented 2018 Mitsubishi SUV as 31-year-old Darryl Stinnette of Mesquite, Texas.  Stinnette was killed about 2:35 a.m. on the bridge, where the eastbound lanes were closed for more than five hours during the California Highway Patrol investigation.

Law enforcement sources told KTVU they have information that leads to a possible motive. Sources said that Stinnette and his passengers  had been at a club in San Francisco before the shooting. Stinnette was a rap concert promoter from Texas who had just put on an event Sunday night at the Harlot, a nightclub on Minna Street, south of Market.

Law enforcement sources say there was an altercation  that may have led to the shooting on the Bay Bridge. What that fight was about has not been revealed.

KTVU has also  learned that there was another shooting on Minna Street about 90 minutes earlier that San Francisco police are investigating.

Sources say at 1 a.m., two men inside a white Mercedes fired multiple shots outside the Harlot nightclub.  But it's unclear who their target was. The Mercedes then crashed into a freeway pillar and police arrested those two men. Sources say the timing and location suggest a link between the two shootings.

Reached by phone on Tuesday morning in Texas, Stinnette's mother, Toni Barnes, told KTVU her son was the sweetest man, and had been in San Francisco for business.  

Her son went by the nickname "Pooh," something she called him as a baby because he was "such a fat little one," Barnes said with a warm chuckle. "He was my Pooh Bear. That's the name everyone knew him by. Some friends didn't even know his real name. He was so sweet, humble and kid. If anyone really knows my son, he was the sweetest, kindest person and always respectful."

His father, Darryl Stinnette Sr., said his son had two boys, a 10-year-old and a newborn baby. He was also engaged to be married.

Neither parents know who he was with or much about what  happened, but they knew he traveled to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Georgia to promote his music. No official authority has called either parent; Barnes said she learned of her son’s death through her nephew, who saw it on social media.

Barnes added that her son had never been in trouble before and was "never in anything that was going on."

As for dealing with her son's sudden death, Barnes said that she watches the news all the time and cries when she sees that other people's children have been killed. It's just so much more difficult when the news is about her child. 

"To hear you lose your child in a senseless killing it's a totally different feeling,” she said. "But God has a reason for everything and a plan for everything. I do have faith and Pooh has faith. He's in the greatest hands he can ever be in right now. I see him on that pedestal. I know he's OK.”

Two other drivers on the Bay Bridge got caught up in the gunfire. The driver of a Porsche, and Raul Lopez, who was driving along until his car was clipped. 

Even though his car got damaged, Lopez wasn't injured, and he ended up helping one of Stinnette's two passengers, both of whom survived and were taken to the hospital. As of Monday night, a spokesman for San Francisco General  Hospital said one of the passengers was treated and released for his injuries and the other passenger was in fair condition. 

"The guy was bleeding," Lopez described one of the victims. "He was like, 'Can you help me tighten my shirt?' So I tightened it so it would stop bleeding."

Lopez also described what it sounded like on the bridge: "It was like five pops, like fireworks.  But they weren't fireworks. I  see a SUV getting to my car and hitting me," he said.  

A gofundme was started in memory of Stinnette here.