MONTCLAIR >> Adrianna Barela rushed outside when she heard sirens and cars rushing through her mobile home park late Friday afternoon.
Amid the crowd of sheriff’s deputies and curious onlookers, a boy ran up to her with heartbreaking news.
“Your boyfriend just got shot,” he told her.
She headed straight for the mobile home her boyfriend, Robert Camacho, shared with his aunt in the same park. The 17-year-old found Camacho collapsed on the floor, bleeding and barely alive.
“All I got to say was ‘I love you babe’ and I was taken out of there,” she said.
San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials say Camacho, 20, was standing with friends at a park in the 11300 block of Kingston Court — within the Peachwood mobile home community — at 4:15 p.m. when a gunman approached.
He opened fire at the crowd, striking Camacho several times, authorities said. Paramedics took him to an area hospital where he died.
Detectives aren’t sure if Camacho was the intended target.
Adrianna, her mother, Dennell Alaniz, and brother, Armando Barela, gathered at a memorial site set up at the park on Monday. Flowers and candles sat within a circle of red bricks, all with Camacho’s name or messages written in black ink.
Camacho’s mother had left a bouquet of flowers at the site earlier. Several drops of blood remained on the sidewalk nearby.
“He was really smart and he just got caught up in the wrong things, the wrong decisions,” Alaniz said.
Friends say Camacho graduated with honors from Don Lugo High School in Chino and had taken some classes at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, but also had a dark side that he couldn’t escape.
Adrianna Barela said he was trying to kick a methamphetamine habit and also tried to distance himself from his membership with a Pomona gang. His efforts on both fronts weren’t successful.
She also said Camacho was on probation for a felony, and feared going back to jail because he had missed an appointment with his probation officer.
San Bernardino County court records show Camacho was found guilty in October 2012 of receiving stolen property.
Despite his demons, Adrianna Barela stayed with Camacho.
“I tried really hard with him,” she said. “I didn’t like it (the drug use) at all.”
Anyone with any information on this case may call sheriff’s Detective Bryan Zierdt or Sgt. Trevis Newport at 909-387-3589. People wanting to remain anonymous may call the WeTip hot line at 800-78-CRIME.
