Officer Mario Nelson, 31, was shot and killed in Rialto, California on 1/3/04 when he came home from working the graveyard shift and parked his cruiser in his garage. His neighbor John Van Uffelen, 67, was reading the newspaper when he heard yelling and screaming at Nelson’s house. He then heard eight shots, followed by a short pause, followed by two more shots. The sheriff’s department got a call at 7:14 a.m. about gunfire at the house. When deputies arrived they found the garage door open and a Fontana police car in the garage. His ex girlfriend, Antoinette Smith, 19, waited for him to exit the cruiser and shot him multiple times and then killed herself with one shot. A neighbor, John Van Uffelen, 67, saw a sheriff deputy a month before breaking up a fight at 5:30 a.m. and when he spoke Mario Nelson the next day he told his neighbor that if he ever saw her again to call the sheriff’s department because she was bugging him and interfering with his business. Nelson had broken up with Smith in September and she had been on medication and was depressed she was not with him around the holidays. Smith was a teacher’s aide in special education at Eisenhower High School in Rialto. Recently had been accepted into Cal State San Bernardino and planned to complete her teaching degree there. She and Nelson were once engaged, and at one point, she had gone shopping for a wedding gown. Officer Nelson was hired by the Fontana Police Department in 1999 and became a canine officer in June. Nelson was previously a security officer with the Rialto Unified School District as well as a Marine Corps reservist. Nelson had moved into the house less than two years and Smith lived with him for a short time.
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