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A 25-year-old father of three became Berkeley’s first homicide victim of the year Sunday afternoon when he was felled by a hail of gunfire on the street outside his grandmother’s South Berkeley apartment, police report. Meanwhile, a Wednesday night shooting death is being attributed to the City of Albany. 

Mario Jackson, known as Tiptoe to friends, was ambushed outside the building at 1317 Ashby Ave., said Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

Starting about 4:41, police 911 dispatchers were flooded by multiple calls of “shots fired,” Okies said. Officers rushed to the scene, finding Jackson lying on a walkway and bleeding from multiple wounds.  

Police rendered first aid to the victim at the scene until paramedics arrived. Jackson was rushed to Highland Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. 

Okies said that Berkeley homicide detectives believe Jackson was shot in the parking lot to the rear of the property, then stumbled to a walkway where he fell.  

Berkeley detectives are currently investigating a number of potential motives in this case, Okies said. 

The officer declined to confirm published accounts of remarks from anonymous neighbors who reported seeing a man in his late teens or early 20s leap a fence and jump and run into a car waiting on Burnett Street, where a second man allegedly drove off. 

Investigators are asking are anyone who knows anything about the shooting to contact the Homicide Detail at 981-5741 or e-mail tips to police@ci.berkeley.ca.us, anonymously or otherwise.  

Another gunshot victim was a fatally wounded 18-year-old Richmond man whose car crashed into the Golden Gate Fields parking lot in Berkeley Wednesday night after he was shot in the head. Anthony Robinson also died at Highland Hospital Sunday but his death is not considered a Berkeley homicide. 

Because Robinson was shot as he was driving southbound on Interstate 80 through Albany, the killing goes to that city’s credit. 

Following Robinson’s shooting, the victim was rushed to Highland Hospital, where he underwent brain surgery and was then placed in the Intensive Care Unit, where he was pronounced dead at 9:48 p.m. Sunday, according to the Alameda County Coroner’s office. 

Albany Police Lt. Mike McQuiston asked for the public’s help in locating the suspect car, “which is described as a white, late model American made vehicle, possibly a Buick Regal, with ‘spinner’ wheels, license plate unknown.” 

McQuiston asked anyone with information to call his department at 525-7300.›