Author: Amanda Covarrubias

An argument at a Persian New Year’s party in Westlake Village turned deadly when someone allegedly used a religious expletive against a guest’s wife, police said Monday.

A design teacher at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Norman Schureman, 51, was shot and killed Sunday after the woman’s husband left the party and returned with a knife and two guns, said Lt. Liam Gallagher of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.

“There was a perceived insult, the suspect left the party with his wife, came back on his own with two guns,” Gallagher said Monday.

It was unclear who made the original insult, allegedly against the wife of suspect Steven Honma, 55.

Honma, who is a neighbor of the party’s host in the 31000 block of Kentfield Court, returned to the party, where guests had been drinking alcohol, and pulled out a knife, Gallagher said. Honma flicked the knife open and shut in front of other partygoers, who tried to stop him, Gallagher said.

“They told him to put it away,” Gallagher said. “There was a physical altercation. They tackled him. That’s when he pulled a gun and fired it.”

Schureman was the only person hit, police said. Other guests held Honma until police arrived and arrested him. He remained in custody Monday.

Schureman, who lived in Altadena, also was a graduate of the Art Center College of Design. President Lorne M. Buchman referred to Schureman on the school’s website Monday as a “celebrated and adored member of our community.”

— Ching-Ching Ni

Photo: Norman Schureman was a professor at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Credit: Steven A. Heller / Art Center College of Design

An 11-year-old Chatsworth boy reported missing from his apartment was found safe Monday at a friend’s house in Woodland Hills, police said.

Cody Burton went to take out the trash Sunday night but never returned to his home in the 10200 block of Eton Avenue, police said. His mother called police, who searched for him.

He turned up Monday morning when the friend’s parents contacted the boy’s mother after seeing a TV report about the missing child, said Officer Gregory Baek of the Los Angeles Police Department.

“We don’t know how he got to the friend’s house,” Baek said. “All we know is the boy’s OK. He returned to his mother.”

— Ching-Ching Ni

A man who allegedly shot and killed a teacher from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena was in custody Monday as investigators looked into what led to the fight between the men at a Westlake Village party.

Teacher Norman Schureman, 51, attended the party in the 31000 block of Kentfield Court on Sunday night when he got into a fight with suspect Steven Honma, 55, authorities said.

Honma allegedly shot Schureman in the upper body and was detained by partygoers until authorities arrived.

“Apparently, remarks were made to someone’s wife, and I suspect it was the suspect’s wife," said Det. Larry Brandenburg of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s homicide unit. Honma "went home, came back and the victim was dead."

The president of the Art Center College of Design, Lorne M. Buchman, wrote about Schureman on the school’s official blog, “The Dotted Line," referring to him as a “celebrated and adored member of our community.”

Schureman was a graduate of the college, where his father, Bob Schureman, had also taught.

“For over 20 years, Norm devoted himself tirelessly to the College, instilling in his students a passion for design, a love for drawing and an eye for excellence,” Buchman wrote. “A place in the student gallery was always reserved for the great projects from Norm’s classes.”

The incident marks the first reported homicide in Westlake Village since The Times began tracking all homicides in Los Angeles County on the Homicide Report in January 2007.

— Ching-Ching Ni

Map: The location of the killing. Click for an interactive map of Los Angeles County homicides.

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A man was shot and killed in an apparent gang hit as he was getting a haircut in a barbershop near MacArthur Park, police said Monday.

Domingo Reyes, 35, of Los Angeles, was in the Westlake neighborhood shop Sunday at 6:38 p.m. when an assailant entered and shot him three times, twice in the body and once in the head, said Officer Gregory Baek, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department.

Reyes was pronounced dead at a hospital.

An investigation was continuing, but the shooting was believed to be gang-related, police said.

[Updated at 8:53 a.m.: The suspect was wearing a blue hoodie jacket with the hood up when he walked into Alberto’s Barber Shop at 730 S. Alvarado St. and shot Reyes as he sat in a barber’s chair getting his hair cut. No one else was hurt, police said. Anyone with information is asked to call LAPD homicide detectives at (213) 484-3650.

An earlier version of this post said the victim was not identified, but police later released Reyes’ name.

There was a shooting on the same street three years ago when a woman who ran a Salvadoran restaurant was discovered dead in her apartment at 725 S. Alvarado Street. Family members found Flora Fuentes, 71, dead on the floor with numerous stab wounds after she failed to show up the morning of Nov. 24, 2007, to open the business.]

— Patrick J. McDonnell

Map: There have been 84 homicides within two miles of the latest crime scene since Jan. 1, 2007, according to the Times’ Homicide Report database. Click for an interactive map of homicides in Los Angeles County.

Seven members of the Los Angeles City Council moved Friday to conduct their own review of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s latest plan to raise electric rates at the Department of Water and Power.

One day after the DWP board approved the first of four increases planned for the coming year, Councilwoman Jan Perry introduced a motion asking her colleagues to take up the proposal.
Perry’s request is scheduled to come up for a vote Tuesday.

Although Perry said she is keeping an open mind about the plan, Councilman Dennis Zine adopted a less nuanced stand.

“My focus on it is very simple: I’m voting no,” he said.

The DWP board, whose members are appointed by Villaraigosa, voted Thursday to add 0.8 cents to each kilowatt hour of energy consumed. The panel is expected to approve charging an extra 2.7 cents for each kilowatt hour by April 2011.

That money is needed, in part, to help Villaraigosa reach his goal of securing 20% of the utility’s power from renewable sources by Dec. 31. Once all of the increases are in place, households are expected to pay an additional 8.8% to 28.4%, depending on where they live and how much power they use.

Businesses are expected to see increases of 21% to 22%, according to the DWP.

The council has the power to affirm the DWP’s board decision or send it back to the five-member panel for more work.

Villaraigosa’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But on Thursday, the mayor said he respected the council’s right to review DWP proposals.

“We almost always have been on the same page on the vast majority of issues, and I just look forward to what their good counsel brings,” he said.

–David Zahniser and Phil Willon at Los Angeles City Hall

Photo: Councilwoman Jan Perry

Credit: Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times

A bomb threat at Palmdale High School that prompted a campus evacuation Friday probably was a prank, officials said.

Steve Radford, the school’s assistant principal, confirmed that Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies conducted a search, but did not find anything threatening on campus.

“We feel at this time that it was a hoax,” Radford said Friday afternoon.

Deputies at the Palmdale sheriff’s station received a report about 8:30 a.m. of a bomb threat at the campus, 2137 E. Avenue R.

Radford said the school was evacuated and students were moved to a safe location off the premises “as a precaution” while deputies conducted an investigation.

The incident was resolved by about 10.30 a.m, he said.

–Ann M. Simmons

Learn more about Palmdale High School’s enrollment and performance in The Times’ California Schools Guide.

Los Angeles County has received a $32-million grant from the federal government to pay for projects that tackle chronic diseases, health officials said Friday.

The grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is part of an initiative called Communities Putting Prevention to Work. The two-year grant will be used to address obesity, physical activity, nutrition, tobacco use and other health issues, officials said.

Friday’s announcement at the Hahn Hall of Administration in downtown Los Angeles was made in conjunction with a national event hosted in Washington by First Lady Michelle Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

L.A. County was among 44 communities that received awards, although more than 400 nationwide applied, officials said. The money will be used to positively affect citizens’ access to safe places to exercise, their ability to purchase nutritional foods and their right to smoke-free environments, officials said.

"This funding gives our public health department an exciting new opportunity to improve the health and quality of life of Los Angeles County residents," County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said in a statement.

— Ann M. Simmons

L.A. County sheriff’s deputies were investigating a bomb threat Friday at Palmdale High School that led to the campus being evacuated.

“Someone called in that there was a bomb on campus,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Dan McPherson.

The report at the school at 2137 E. Avenue R was made about 8:30 a.m., authorities said.

“They evacuated the children to a safe location on the outside edge of the campus,” McPherson said.

Officials at the school could not be reached for comment.

— Ann M. Simmons

Learn more about Palmdale High School’s enrollment and performance at the Times’ California Schools Guide.

A wind advisory will be in effect through noon Friday for parts of Southern California as Santa Ana winds blow into the region, according to the National Weather Service.

“Building high pressure will bring gusty northeast winds,” said Dessa Emch, a program manager at the National Weather Service office in Oxnard. “The strongest winds will be through the passes and canyons of Ventura and Los Angeles counties."

Local gusty winds also were expected in the valleys and in the Santa Monica Mountains, she said. A wind advisory is typically issued when winds of more than 35 mph are expected.

Gusts of up to 50 mph will blow through passes and canyons, she said.

“Winds this strong can make driving difficult, especially for high-profile vehicles,” Emch said. “We always advise drivers to use extra caution.”

Winds will decrease Friday afternoon to 15 mph to 25 mph, Emch said.

Temperatures will reach the upper 70s in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys and in the Santa Monica Mountain areas.

— Ann M. Simmons

Photo: Palm trees blowing in the wind. Credit: File Photo

L.A. County public health officials are scheduled to announce Friday how much federal grant money they have been awarded to help fund local prevention and wellness initiatives.

The announcement is part of a national kickoff event hosted in Washington, D.C., by First Lady Michelle Obama and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, according to information released by the Los Angeles County Public Health Department.

The amount of the county’s award and its significance will be announced at a news conference attended by L.A. County Public Health Director Jonathan E. Fielding and L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, among others.

In February, the first lady announced the "Let’s Move" campaign, calling for public-private partnerships to help promote good health and prevent disease.

Sebelius followed earlier this month with an announcement about an opportunity for national and public non-profit organizations to apply for $10 million in cooperative agreements to help communities decrease smoking and obesity, increase physical activity and improve nutrition.

— Ann M. Simmons

Photo: U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Credit: Charles Cherney / Associated Press

Police in Bell Gardens looked Thursday for a man who walked up to another man on the street and fatally shot him in what investigators described as a gang-related act of violence.

Three men were drinking alcohol on the 6800 block of Ira Avenue about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday when the unidentified suspect walked up and shot one of them in the torso, said Lt. Jeff Travis of the Bell Gardens Police Department.

The shooter fled on foot, Travis said.

“This guy just walked up unannounced and starting shooting,” Travis said.

The victim was taken to St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, where he later died from his injuries.

Police did not have any information on the suspect, and they would not elaborate on why they believed the shooting was gang-related.

— My-Thuan Tran

Map: There have been 17 homicides within two miles of this location since Jan. 1, 2007, according to the Times’ Homicide Report interactive map and database. Click for an interactive map of homicides in Los Angeles County.

California lawmakers will consider Thursday a proposal to ban smoking at state parks and beaches, a move supporters say would reduce litter, limit exposure to secondhand smoke and prevent wildfires.

Violators would be subject to a fine of $100.

State Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach), who introduced the bill, said cigarette butts are the most frequently found marine debris and that cigarette waste threatens the marine life that ingests it.

Various local governments, including Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Los Angeles and Malibu, have passed bans on smoking at local parks, beaches and piers.

Tobacco manufacturers oppose the bill, saying a ban on smoking at beaches and parks infringes on the rights of smokers. The bill does not cover parking lots next to state parks and beaches.

— My-Thuan Tran

Photo: Hikers and horse riders at Andrew Molera State Park in
California’s Big Sur area. Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles
Times.

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Customers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power get their first chance Thursday to weigh in on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s latest plan for hiking electric rates.

The DWP commission, whose five members are appointed by Villaraigosa, will meet at 12:30 p.m. to review the proposal to charge households between 8.8% and 28.4% more for their power, depending on where people live and how much electricity they use.

S. David Freeman, the utility’s top executive, said the money generated by the increase would allow Villaraigosa to carry out a longtime promise: securing 20% of the DWP’s power from renewable sources, such as solar and wind energy, by Dec. 31. The money also is needed to "maintain the financial integrity" of the DWP and pay for the rising cost of coal, according to a report submitted to the commission.

"I’m not one to holler poverty, but this is a serious financial situation that has to be solved in a matter of weeks," Freeman said earlier this week as he rolled out the proposal.

City Councilwoman Jan Perry, who heads the Energy and Environment Committee, questioned Freeman’s demand for swift action and said she said will ask her colleagues to review the DWP’s decision.

"They created this time crunch to put pressure on their board members to vote for it affirmatively with a minimum of questions," she said.

The increase would be phased in over the next year, and Thursday’s vote would represent the first of four rate hikes. The board must decide whether to add .8 cents to each kilowatt hour of power consumed by ratepayers. Following three more increases, DWP customers would be required to pay an extra 2.7 cents for each kilowatt hour by January 2011, according to the plan.

"On a systemwide basis, this represents a 22% increase to power system rates," stated the report submitted to the DWP board.

Environmentalists and labor leaders have already signed on to the plan, saying it will help create thousands of "green" jobs and begin the process of moving the DWP away from dirtier fossil fuels. Critics contend the utility needs more money to pay for costs associated with a labor contract backed by Villaraigosa last year. That pact will give DWP workers annual raises ranging from 2% to 4% in each of the next four years.

The DWP faces other financial burdens. Retirement costs for its workforce are projected to go up by 65% over the next four years, from $292 million this year to $483 million in 2013. Meanwhile, the utility has been asked to provide at least $220 million to help balance the city’s budget and hire workers from other departments to help slash the city’s payroll costs.

The Thursday meeting is scheduled to take place on the 15th floor of DWP headquarters at 111 N. Hope St. in downtown Los Angeles.

— David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall

Two dozen federal, state and local law enforcement agencies launched a major sweep Wednesday targeting members of a motorcycle gang in California and several other Western states, officials said.

Numerous people were arrested, said John Hall, spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney’s office. He declined to give numbers or name the gang because the operation was ongoing.

The operation began about 5 a.m., said Deputy Melissa Nieburger, a spokeswoman for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

Officers began exercising search warrants and conducting parole and probation checks at dozens of locations throughout the county, Hall said. Command posts were set up in Hemet, Mira Loma and downtown Riverside, Nieburger said.

Further details about the operation were to be provided at a 3 p.m. news conference in Riverside, officials said.

— Alexandra Zavis

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Hundreds of L.A. County Superior Court employees planned to march in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday to protest recently announced staff layoffs and courtroom closures.

Court officials sent layoff notices to 329 of about 5,400 Superior Court employees Tuesday and said 16 courtrooms would be closed because of budget cuts.

Superior Court officials have long warned of looming layoffs and closures, saying they were inevitable because of budgetary cutbacks handed down by the state government.

A bulk of the cuts were made to assistants and clerical workers, but they included six child advocacy specialists, seven court reporters and seven family court services specialists.

The closed courtrooms include three criminal courtrooms and one family courtroom. The Los Angeles Superior Court system has about 600 courtrooms.

Employees planned to march on the State Building in downtown Los Angeles to urge the Legislature to restore funding to the Los Angeles courts, the largest trial court in the nation.

A union organizing the rally criticized the financial management of the Administrative Office of the Courts, the state agency that oversees the judicial branch.

— Victoria Kim

Two dozen federal, state and local agencies launched a major sweep Wednesday of Riverside County gang members.

[Updated at 12:34 p.m.: An "outlaw" motorcycle gang is the target, and similar raids are being conducted in other Western states, said a spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney’s office.]

The operation began about 5 a.m. and was ongoing, said Deputy Melissa Nieburger, a spokeswoman for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

Agents and officers served search warrants and conducted parole and probation checks at numerous locations throughout the county, Nieburger said.

Command posts were set up in Hemet, Mira Loma and downtown Riverside, she said.

She declined to say whether any arrests had been made or provide details about the operation until it was completed.

— Alexandra Zavis

Los Angeles International Airport authorities say the temporary suspension of passenger screening at a  terminal Wednesday morning was caused by a passenger who wandered off while one of her items was being checked.

The delay caused some passengers to fear a security incident.

Security officials at Terminal 7 had questions regarding the woman’s medication and wanted to check it, said LAX spokesman Albert Rodriguez. The woman apparently thought the medication had been confiscated and left the screening area, he said.

Officials shut down screening for 20 minutes while they searched terminals 6 and 7 for the woman and returned her property, he said.
No flights were affected.

— Alexandra Zavis

The father of a woman missing for six months since being released from the sheriff’s station in Calabasas filed a claim for damages Tuesday against Los Angeles County, alleging that deputies were negligent in their care of her.

Michael Richardson’s claim alleges that deputies “failed to respond reasonably to a suspect who exhibited signs of mental illness.” The document is similar to one filed two months ago by Latice Sutton, the mother of 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson.

The night Mitrice Richardson was arrested at a Malibu restaurant for not paying her bill, patrons and staffers at Geoffrey’s described her actions as bizarre. Since her disappearance, police detectives discovered evidence that she was suffering from severe bipolar disorder.

“This is just a drastic step we have to take,” Michael Richardson said Tuesday outside the Hahn Hall of Administration in downtown Los Angeles.

”His only goal is to find Mitrice Richardson," said his attorney, Benjamin Schonbrun, who later characterized the claim as an “attempt to hold accountable those that released a mentally imbalanced young woman into the darkness of night without so much as a mental evaluation.”

Officials with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have maintained that they released Richardson in a timely manner at 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 17, 2009. They said they told her she could stay at the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff’s station as long as she needed.

Her car — which contained her cellphone and purse — had been impounded upon her arrest.

But on Tuesday, Richardson lashed out at law enforcement officials and local politicians for not working hard enough to find his daughter. He said county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas had not returned his phone calls for the last month, and he criticized U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) for not doing enough.

Both public officials represent the district where Richardson was living before she vanished.

“All the people who didn’t respond to me — it’s voting time,” Richardson declared.

Waters did make a formal request for the FBI to get involved, and last fall Ridley-Thomas directed the sheriff’s department to review events surrounding Mitrice Richardson’s release from jail, as well as their general procedures for custody release.

Ridley-Thomas also prompted the Board of Supervisors to issue and extend a reward for information leading to her whereabouts. Authorities have conducted four searches of Malibu Canyon, and two LAPD detectives were assigned to the case full time up until several weeks ago.

But both Richardson and Sutton said Tuesday they believe authorities were not pursuing the search aggressively.

“They haven’t been returning phone calls. They just dropped this,” Sutton said. “We’ve been trying to get drones out to search Malibu Canyon.”

Sutton said she was still waiting for the sheriff’s department to approve a remote-controlled aircraft search of Malibu Canyon for signs of her daughter.

— Carla Hall at the Hahn Hall of Administration in downtown L.A.

Photo: Mitrice Richardson has been missing since Sept. 17.

At OK Donuts in Pico Rivera, Leang Muy and his sister Lisa Parng were cleaning the kitchen when they suddenly felt the ground shake.

"I stood still," said Muy, 27. "I heard my sister say, ‘Earthquake!’ and she too didn’t move."

Muy said the shop was not damaged in the magnitude 4.4 quake that struck the region early Tuesday morning. Almost an hour later, customers were walking in for their usual coffee and doughnuts. Some stood around watching news coverage of the quake, which was centered in Pico Rivera.

At Walt’s Liquor in Pico Rivera, Letti Talamantes stood behind her counter Tuesday morning, tending to customers. She said she did not bother rushing to the store after the quake struck.

"Nothing fell at the house, so I assumed nothing fell [in the store], and if something did, I figured it was very minor," she said.

Talamantes said the quake felt like a "strong bang."

With the recent massive quakes in Chile and Haiti, Talamantes said she could not help but wonder: "What’s coming next?"

Talamantes, who has lived in Pico Rivera for 47 years, said she thought back to the magnitude 5.9 quake centered in nearby Whittier Narrows that killed eight people in 1987. She was at the store that day when all the whiskey and vodka bottles were knocked over.

"I even saw the building actually move," Talamantes said, adding that when she made it out she saw rolling waves of concrete. The quake caused $30,000 in damage to her store. But on Tuesday, not even one item in her store broke, and she said she’s grateful for that.

— Ruben Vives in Pico Rivera

Southern Californians were awakened early Tuesday to a 4.4-magnitude earthquake centered in Pico Rivera that caused no major damage or injuries but put first-responders on alert and rattled nerves.

Residents living near the epicenter near Pico Rivera said some items fell off shelves and tables, but authorities said they have no reports of structural damage to homes. However, the quake may have caused damage to Interstate 5 in Downey, where two southbound lanes buckled and were closed temporarily. [For the record, 1:16 p.m.: An earlier version of this post stated the quake may have damaged a section of Interstate 5 in Lakewood.]

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the temblor struck at 4:04 a.m. about 11 miles east of downtown Los Angeles and about one mile from Pico Rivera. The depth was recorded at about 11 miles. The quake was considered small, but it was felt over a large swath of Southern California.

On the USGS website, more than 1,000 people across Southern California reported feeling the temblor.

Jeff Carr, chief of staff to L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, said in a Twitter message that it appeared there was "no major damage in the City at this time. Good reminder that we all need 2 be prepared."

The quake was centered about four miles from the epicenter of the 1987 Whittier Narrows quake, which caused eight deaths and registered magnitude 5.9.

Tuesday’s quake produced about 500 times less energy than the Whittier Narrows earthquake, said Kate Hutton, a seismologist at Caltech. Tuesday’s shaker was also weaker than the 5.5 Chino Hills earthquake in the summer of 2008, which was felt widely but caused little damage.

Earthquakes with a magnitude of 4 are actually quite common in Southern California, occurring somewhere in the region every month or two. The last magnitude 4 earthquake in the region occurred Saturday in a remote area of northern San Diego County near the town of Julian.

"It’s all location, location, location," Hutton said. "The only thing that distinguishes this [morning’s earthquake] is that it happened in a populated area."

The quake appeared to be triggered by a thrust fault, in which one side of a fault slides over another, Hutton said. It was still unclear which fault caused the quake.

For Jose Palomera, Tuesday’s quake came during cleaning time at the taco stand El Atacor in Pico Rivera. He was removing mats out of the kitchen when he felt a strong jolt.

"At first I thought it was a big rig passing by because it tends to shake here when one passes by," Palomera said.

He said he stood still and realized it wasn’t a truck. "I then saw my two co-workers come out and ask if it was an earthquake," he said.

Outside the taco stand only minutes after the earthquake struck, Palomera was back to his usual routine, wiping down tables.

"It felt like a big wave just passing by," he said.

There is a small chance that Tuesday’s earthquake is a precursor to the Big One, Hutton said. Any time an earthquake occurs in California, there’s statistically a 5% chance that it is a "foreshock" of a larger earthquake, Hutton said.

But that 5% chance diminishes after the first day of the quake. The likelihood of a subsequent larger temblor is further lessened if there are no aftershocks. As daybreak approached, no aftershocks had been reported.

— Ruben Vives in Pico Rivera and Rong-Gong Lin II in Alhambra

Photo: Larry Delahoy walks along the 7700 block of Passons Boulevard in Pico Rivera after being awakened early Tuesday morrning by the magnitude 4.4 earthquake. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

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