Highland, CA – A White grandfather was fatally shot in a Walmart parking lot following an altercation over a minor fender bender, just east of San Bernardino.

According to reports, 59-year-old Jonathan Mauk went to Walmart on the night of Feb. 5 to purchase supplies to make beef jerky. Police said he was backing up after passing a parking spot when his custom-built 1998 Chevrolet Camaro Supersport collided with a vehicle backing out of a different space.

The vehicle damage was reportedly minor, resulting in a scratch or two and no injuries. San Bernardino Police Captain Nelson Carrington told People that Mauk exited his car to apologize to the driver, 37-year-old Shawntece Marie Norton.

“There was a verbal altercation, and that’s when, per witness accounts, the suspect retrieved a firearm and shot the victim. It’s my understanding that the suspect is the one who did all of the yelling,” said Carrington.

When officers arrived, they found Mauk with a gunshot wound to his head. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Norton—who is Black—fled after the shooting and was arrested at an apartment complex “less than 12 hours later,” where police recovered an unregistered firearm believed to have been used in the killing.

Police charged her with murder and sentencing enhancements of using a firearm in the commission of a felony and using a firearm to cause great bodily harm. Court records indicate that Norton pled not guilty to all charges in her court appearance last week. Currently, she is ineligible for bail and remains in custody at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga.

The senseless killing has left a community shocked and heartbroken.

“I couldn’t imagine anybody getting that upset over something so small, so insignificant,” the victim’s son Matthew Mauk said. “It’s so painful. I wouldn’t want anybody to go through this.” Mauk also recalled his father being in a prior crash and expressing more concern for the others than himself.

“I cried when I found out he got killed. That’s what he loved — cars. He probably would have fixed the lady’s car for nothing, but she ended up shooting him.” Lee Hall, the victim’s coworker and friend, told KTLA.

Mauk once owned a tow truck company and would pull over to assist motorists even if they hadn’t called and even fix their broken-down cars in front of auto parts stores.

Jonathan is survived by his three sons, two grandchildren, and “a legacy that cannot be described,” as per his GoFundMe page. “He was very, very self-sacrificing. He’d do anything to help anyone,” Matthew recalled.

“He liked being called ‘grandpa.’ He said it made him feel old, but he loved the title,” the son told KABC.

“This GoFundMe is being created due to the overwhelming support we have received and by request to help. Words cannot describe what this means to my family.”

Meanwhile, Mauk’s family is seeking justice for his abhorrent murder, with Matthew remarking, “There should be no leniency. This type of thing should not be tolerated. This community is already broken enough over years of all the issues that we do have.”

"We'll be there for every single court hearing. Anything that has to do with this incident, we're going to be there. We're going to be vocal, we're going to talk about it," he said.

The devastating murder is the latest in a pattern of White deaths at the hands of Black drivers in road rage incidents. In June of last year, a White man was shot and killed on Ohio’s Interstate 76 by a Black ex-convict with an extensive criminal history. That same month, two White brothers were shot dead on their way to a job interview by a Black driver who claimed the shooting was in self-defense despite the victims being unarmed.

“There should be no leniency. This type of thing should not be tolerated. This community is already broken enough over years of all the issues that we do have.”

Matthew Mauk

The demographic demise of California’s White population is a well-documented phenomenon, and the city of Highland is no exception. With the current White population standing at a markedly low 43.9% and the Black population at a growing 7.2%, both are vastly overshadowed by a monolithic Hispanic population, which sits at a whopping 58.9%.

Highland is barely six miles east of San Bernardino, which was rated among the most dangerous cities in the U.S., according to a recent study. The 2020 U.S. Census Bureau shows the White alone percentage of the city’s population at a dismal 12.90%, a notable drop from 19.04% in 2010, while the Hispanic population jumped from 60.02% to 68.04%.

This increase can be attributed to a combination of high Hispanic birth rates and the ‘White flight’ phenomenon, often resulting from an influx of non-whites into local communities that studies have shown contribute to a loss in social trust.

According to the White-Papers Policy Institute, unfettered immigration into the United States has led to a sharp uptick in violent crime, which appears explicitly linked to the presence of non-White people. Using the state of Texas as an example, a rise in Black and Hispanic populations sees that both non-White groups are responsible for 71.4% of all rapes, 58% of all sexual violence cases, 72% of all aggravated assaults, and 76.5% of all murders.

It has since been referred to as a "Texas massacre," and if immigration trends are not stopped, WPPI predicts that White people in the United States will become a minority by 2045.

Interracial hyper-violence, which targets the White community's most vulnerable, is continuing to make headlines all across the Western world. In January of 2023, a young newlywed was hacked to death with a machete inside an Ohio dollar store. The suspect, Black African migrant Bethel M. Bekele, was said to have committed the small town's first murder in over 20 years.

In April, a Black career criminal was said to have shot and killed a White employee at a California Home Depot store in broad daylight. Police stated that the victim was shot by a Black woman and her getaway driver—a convicted rapist—over a battery charger they had stolen from inside.

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