Bridge death may be tied to club shooting
Gunfire outside a San Francisco nightclub may be connected to a Monday morning shooting on the Bay Bridge that left a Texas father of two and music promoter dead and his family grieving.
Darryl Stinnette Jr., or “Li’l Pooh” to nearly everyone he knew, was in San Francisco from the Dallas area to promote a rapper — one of the many artists he toured with around the country.
Stinnette, 31, and others made an appearance at a nightclub in the South of Market neighborhood Sunday night when some sort of con-
frontation broke out and someone started shooting, Stinnette’s friends and San Francisco police said.
Investigators are now looking into whether the run-in at the club led to the shooting on the eastbound lower deck of the Bay Bridge that left Stinnette dead and two passengers in his vehicle wounded.
The killer remains at large and the California Highway Patrol, the lead agency investigating the crime, has not released a motive for the attack. Investigators said they have video of the suspect vehicle but have not elaborated beyond saying they are looking for a gray or silver sport utility vehicle or sedan.
Stinnette’s family and friends are left trying to understand how such a tragedy could happen to a man they described as “genuine” and “humble.”
“He was a good person,” Stinnette’s father, Darryl Stinnette Sr., said in an emotional telephone interview. “He brought joy around everywhere he went. This is affecting me pretty bad. Now we have to get him home. We have to bury him.”
Stinnette’s mother began calling him her “Pooh bear” when he was a baby, and as a boy he was just “Pooh.” When he grew up and went to high school outside Dallas in Mesquite, his friends started calling him “Li’l Pooh,” a name he eventually used when he started rapping.
Growing up, his family said, he worked as a telemarketer and salesman at a car dealership to make ends meet while pursuing his dream of being a successful rapper.
“He got interested in music at the age of 11,” his father said. “He did everything every little kid does. He played basketball and football and after that he decided to focus on music.”
Though the music career didn’t pay off financially, he learned the ropes of the business and four years ago he joined Dirty Glove Bastard, a promotions company that sent him around the country to work with different up-andcoming hip-hop artists.
He also had two sons, a 10-year-old and an infant born four months ago.
“His daddy was his hero,” Stinnette Sr. said of the older boy. “He’s not taking this too well. That’s something you can’t keep from your kids. You have to let him know.”
Stinnette’s colleagues and friends are shocked and heartbroken as well.
“He was just a great, genuine, kindhearted guy, which is very rare in the music business,” said Michael Bartolomeo, a partner at Dirty Glove Bastard. “He passionately cared about seeing other people succeed. He just wanted to see everyone win.”
Robert Jackson, a recording engineer in Dallas, met Stinnette a decade ago when he was still rapping. Stinnette, he said, would bring other artists by his studio and soon became a player in the Dallas rap scene.
Jackson said Stinnette was focused on family, his son and was “one of the most humble people I knew.”
“It just hurts my heart,” Jackson said of the killing. “He was one of the realest, most genuine people I ever met in my life. He never had issues with anyone.”
Stinnette had been at Harlot, a nightclub at 46 Minna St., on Sunday night after a gig on Saturday with one of the artists he was promoting.
Around 1 a.m. Monday, police responded to shots fired outside the club and a car was seen speeding away from the scene, said Officer Joseph Tomlinson, a San Francisco police spokesman.
The driver, later identified as 22-year-old Pacifica resident Michael Gomez-Borg, hit a freeway support beam at 13th and South Van Ness and was arrested at the scene on suspicion of firearm charges, Tomlinson said.
Investigators are looking into whether anyone caught up in the incident at the club was involved in the Bay Bridge shooting.
“We are checking all leads to see if there is a connection,” Tomlinson said.
It’s unclear when Stinnette left the club, but he was behind the wheel of a Mitsubishi SUV, with another business partner in the front passenger seat and a videographer in the back seat. Other members of his group left in another vehicle.
As the SUV approached the Treasure Island off-ramp on the Bay Bridge around 2:15 a.m., the shooter opened fire, squeezing off around five shots and sending the Mitsubishi careening into another vehicle. The suspect vehicle sped away.
Stinnette was pronounced dead at the scene. The front seat passenger was treated with a gunshot wound to the leg. The man in the back had a gunshot wound to his left arm. Both men were treated and released from the hospital.
Word of the shooting got back to Stinnette Sr.’s nephew, who informed the family. Stinnette Sr. started making calls that night and eventually reached the San Francisco medical examiner, who confirmed the victim was his son.
People on the Dallas music scene have been expressing condolences on social media and friends have since created a GoFundMe page to help the family.
“No one wants to have this kind of tragedy in their family,” Stinnette’s father said. “Burying your kids, that’s something you just don’t want to have to do.”