Mercury News: San Jose: Berryessa man convicted in unprovoked stranger shooting

SAN JOSE — A Berryessa resident has been convicted of shooting and wounding a man in an unprovoked encounter in which the two did not know each other and may have been driven by fears about recent crime in the neighborhood.

Mark Henry Waters, 68, was found guilty last Thursday of assault with a deadly weapon in the Oct. 2, 2022, shooting of a then-21-year-old man who was staying at a nearby Airbnb home off Piedmont Road and was walking to a  grocery store when he was wounded.

The shooting garnered wide attention after the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office charged Waters a few weeks later and said it was exploring whether racial animus was a factor. Waters is white and the victim is Black, and the criminal complaint described Waters training a gun on and briefly pursuing the victim, who never set foot on Waters’ property.