Party to violence
Campus mourns beloved Art Center professor shot and killed at Persian New Year party
By André Coleman 03/25/2010
The man who allegedly shot and killed beloved Art Center College of Design Professor Norman Schureman at a Persian new year’s party suffered brain damage from a beating administered following the shooting.
The injury, said Dmitry Gorin, the attorney for Steven Ronald Honma, 55, required Honma to be hospitalized, which forced a postponement of his arraignment Tuesday in Van Nuys on a charge of murder and one count of being in possession of a handgun. Honma has a prior misdemeanor conviction from the 1980s, when police discovered a gun in his car. Los Angeles District Attorney News Secretary Jane Robison told the Weekly that Honma remains hospitalized.
Honma, according to LAPD Lt. Liam Gallagher, told his wife that she had been insulted after they had returned home from the party thrown by Schureman’s mother-in-law at her home in upscale Westlake Village. It was not immediately known what the perceived insult was.
Honma, who lived two doors away, reportedly returned to the party armed with a knife and two handguns. He first unsheathed the knife, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times, but was told to put it away. When he did not, Honma was overpowered as he pulled out one of the guns, which discharged, striking the upper body of Schureman, who died Sunday at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, according to Gallagher.
The Art Center will host a memorial service for Schureman at 10 a.m. on Sunday on the campus, 1700 Lido St., Pasadena. The service is open to the public. In lieu of flowers, the college is asking that donations be made to a scholarship started in Schureman’s name. The event will be webcast at artcenter.edu/accd/news_events/videos.jsp.
Schureman, whose father, Bob, also taught at Art Center, lived in Altadena with his wife and two young children and was a design and drawing instructor at Art Center for more than 20 years, according to the school’s Web site.
“Norm devoted himself tirelessly to the college, instilling in his students a passion for design, a love for drawing and an eye for excellence. In his Viscom and dynamic sketching classes, as well as his product design classes, Norm brought criticality tempered with humor to his students and their work,” Art Center President Lorne M. Buchman wrote on the school’s blog.
“Each term would generate new and constantly innovative ideas, images and prototypes. A place in the student gallery was always reserved for the great projects from Norm’s classes. Our hearts go out to Norm’s entire family.
For more information, call (626) 396-2338. For information on the he Norman Schureman Memorial Scholarship, visit artcenter.edu/accd/giving.jsp
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