A man who shot and killed another man during a seemingly random encounter in Lincoln Park was sentenced Friday to 28 years to life in state prison.
Davione Antoine Whitaker, 36, was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder for the April 2, 2021, slaying of 44-year-old Bobby Brown.
Brown was found shot just south of the 47th Street trolley station about 7 p.m., according to San Diego police.
Police said witnesses pointed responding officers to a man possibly involved in the shooting who was hiding in the backyard of a home on nearby Hartley Street. Officers arrested Whitaker there.
Whitaker and Brown were strangers to one another.
According to trial testimony, a heavily intoxicated Whitaker was riding the trolley to various locations throughout San Diego while carrying an unserialized “ghost gun.”
At some point, he ended up in the Lincoln Park neighborhood and approached Brown, who was outside an apartment building working on his car.
What happened during their encounter immediately before the shooting was a point of dispute.
In arguing for either a retrial or a reduction of Whitaker’s conviction to voluntary manslaughter, defense attorney Matt Ferrara argued that Brown lunged at his client and Whitaker shot him in self-defense.
But San Diego Superior Court Judge Aaron Katz disagreed, saying that he didn’t believe there was any evidence during the trial to support that Brown would attack a random person. Katz said, “I didn’t see anything that would cause Mr. Brown to lunge at somebody for no apparent reason.”
Brown’s sister, Denise Betts, was one of several family members who spoke during the hearing and said her brother was a grandfather, father and uncle to more than 25 nieces and nephews.
“He was loved by so many,” she said. “He did not deserve for any of this to happen.”
Whitaker, who apologized through tears both to Brown’s family and his own, said during the hearing, “I now realize what I’ve done and I take accountability for my actions.”
Whitaker was sentenced to 15 years to life on the murder count, plus 10 years for using a gun in the killing and three years on an unrelated charge of possessing a weapon in county jail.
