Westlake Village Engineer Accused of Murder "Traumatized" by Years of Racial Insults, Says Lawyer

A lawyer representing Steven Homna, who is accused in the fatal shooting of an Altameda man this weekend, said years of insults and taunting about the Westlake Village resident’s Japanese heritage had traumatized his client.

Dmitry Gorin said the incident involving his 46-year-old client, an engineer, was a “textbook heat-of-passion incident” and hopes the jury will consider manslaughter or a lower-level homicide charge rather than murder when the case goes to trial.

Homna is accused of killing Norman Schureman, a 51-year-old design professor at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design, at a Persian New Year’s party Saturday night. Homna had left the party and allegedly returned bearing weapons after his wife told him that someone had used a racial and sexual insult against her, calling her a “white Christian whore.”

Homna, who lives next door to the party’s host, then returned to the party and allegedly flashed a knife. During a struggle with partygoers who were trying to subdue Homna, he pulled a handgun and struck Schureman in the torso, fatally wounding him. Other attendees at the party detained Homna until authorities could take him into custody, whom they say had been asked to leave the party because he was drunk.

Gorin, whose law firm represents Homna, said the client had been a victim of racial bias his whole life. He also claimed that the party attendees who subdued Homna had badly beaten his client. Homna is currently in critical condition at a local hospital with internal and head injuries.

On Tuesday the district attorney’s office charged Homna with one count of possession of a firearm with a prior conviction and one count of murder. He was to appear in court in Van Nuys yesterday, but his injuries were too severe for him to leave the hospital.