2 Students Die After Bullets Spray Car

A Rancho Cucamonga High School student who was in a vehicle riddled by gunfire late Sunday night died Tuesday, the second student to die in the unsolved shooting.

“This is incredibly devastating, obviously a principal’s worst fear,” said Matt Holton, the Rancho Cucamonga High School principal who told his students Tuesday that Blake Hudson Harris had died.

Harris, 18, had been on life support at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton since Sunday’s shooting on the Haven Avenue overpass of the 210 Freeway in Rancho Cucamonga. He died of multiple gunshot wounds, authorities said.

Christopher Heyman, 17, also a senior at Rancho Cucamonga High, was declared dead at the scene. Harris and Heyman were in a car driven by a 19-year-old Rancho Cucamonga man who was not shot despite as many as 40 bullets being fired at the teens, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department authorities said. Police declined to release the driver’s name.

“The driver didn’t see a car, a suspect on foot, or anything,” said Cindy Beavers, a sheriff’s spokeswoman. “The driver is the only one who knows anything, although he says he didn’t see anything.” Beavers and the driver’s father said investigators do not consider the driver a suspect.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense right now,” Beavers said. “Hopefully, as the investigation moves forward, we’ll be able to give the families some answers.”

Sgt. Tom Bradford, leading the investigation into the shooting, said investigators have interviewed dozens of friends, classmates and associates of Harris, Heyman and the driver, but have yet to determine if the shooting was random or coordinated. Bradford said he was “surprised” no witnesses who were either driving on Haven Avenue or on the 210 have come forward.

“I believe there were cars in the area,” Bradford said.

Authorities said the driver was caught off-guard by the shooting and didn’t immediately notice it because the car’s stereo system was blaring music.

“There’s no doubt [the driver] is scared,” Bradford said. “I don’t think he’s purposely leaving out details because of that.”

Family members and friends of Heyman and Harris carrying candles and balloons gathered Tuesday night at a vigil for the youths at a McDonald’s restaurant just north of the shooting scene.

“It was a bad day, our whole school was very depressed,” said Chelsea Giao, a Rancho Cucamonga junior who clasped arms with senior Lisa Cuevas and gathered behind a group wearing hats reading, “In loving memory of Chris Heyman.”

Said Cuevas: “These were real good kids.”

Tonight, the Rancho Cucamonga boys’ basketball team will host Claremont High School in a makeup game delayed last week when Claremont varsity player Christopher Berglund was accidentally shot and killed by a family member. A Rancho Cucamonga coach said “a triple moment of silence” for the three teens will be conducted before the game begins.

“There’s been a ton of tears here today,” Holton said.