Norman Schureman, 50 [Updated]

Norman Schureman, a 50-year-old white man, was shot Saturday, March 20, at a Persian new year's party in the 31700 block of Kentfield Court in Westlake Village and died early the next morning at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, according to authorities.

Schrureman was shot in a scuffle with another guest. Investigators said that guest, Steven Honma, a 54-year-old Asian man, believed someone had insulted his wife. Witnesses told authorities that Honma left the party to go to his nearby home and returned with a knife and two guns. After the shooting, guests at the party held Honma until police arrived.

Honma is in custody and remains hospitalized with head wounds and internal injuries sustained in the scuffle.

Schureman, who lived in Altadena with his wife and children, was a respected design and drawing instructor at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena who helped build floats for the Rose Parade as a hobby and recently launched a line of eyewear.

He was a graduate of the college where he taught.

Honma was charged Tuesday in Schureman's fatal shooting 

Dmitry Gorin, whose law firm is representing Honma, said his client had been traumatized from years of insults targeting his Japanese heritage.

"This is a textbook heat-of-passion incident, which a jury would consider in deciding whether Mr. Honma is guilty of murder or a lower-level homicide such as a manslaughter," Gorin said. "While the sequence of events are still under investigation, there was someone at the party who made a derogatory racial and sexual slur about his wife. As a Japanese American growing up after World War II, Mr. Honma had experienced great trauma as a victim of racial bias, and that experience scarred him since childhood."

Honma and his family "feel great sorrow and extend their condolences" to the family of Schureman, Gorin said.

[Update Nov. 18, 2011: Man convicted in 2010 Persian New Year's party killing]

[Update Feb. 3, 2012: Man sentenced to 21 years in death of Pasadena Art Center teacher]

-- Ching-Ching Ni, Corina Knoll and Andrew Blankstein

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

KTLA Video: Art professor killed after party