Adolfo Ignacio Celedón, the 35-year-old Chilean man who was shot and killed during a robbery in south Berkeley on Sept. 12, died as he tried to protect his fiancée, according to an article by Henry Lee in the San Francisco Chronicle.
When two men jumped out of their car and approached the couple as they walked home on Adeline Street from a party at Ashkenaz, they pointed a gun at Amber Nelson, 27, who is studying for a master’s degree in architecture at UC Berkeley. Celedón came to Nelson’s defense and was shot numerous times, according to the Chronicle. The two assailants punched Nelson in the face and then fled in an SUV.
At first, Nelson didn’t realize that her fiancé, who had moved to Berkeley just three months earlier, was seriously wounded, according to Lee’s article. But when she saw him lying on the ground, “I just kept telling him that I loved him, over and over and over, and kept telling him to breathe,” she told the Chronicle.
Celedón died later that night at Highland Hospital. No one has been arrested for the crime, Berkeley’s fourth killing of the year. Police and Bay Area Crime Stoppers are offering $17,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the assailants.
Nelson flew down to Chile on Friday for Celedon’s funeral, according to the Chronicle.
Celedón loved acting and hoped to influence the world through his acting, according to Nelson.
“He was on a mission to change the world through acting,” Nelson told the Chronicle. “He’d been working in Chile with some rural schools teaching young children how to act as a form of expression and a way to sort of gain a new voice for social justice.”
Read the full article here.
