Quadriplegic Shot Hours Before He Was to Testify

A Pacoima man who was left a quadriplegic in a shooting last year was shot again Tuesday as he lay helpless in bed, just hours before he was scheduled to testify against the alleged gunman in the first shooting, police said.

Keith A. Curry, 24, who also survived a car bombing two years ago, was in critical but stable condition at an undisclosed hospital with two bullet wounds in the head, police said.

Police said Curry was shot about nine hours before he was scheduled to testify from a wheelchair in a preliminary hearing against his brother-in-law, Donald Franklin Smith, who is charged in the Sept. 29, 1987, shooting that left Curry paralyzed from the neck down.

Police said they are attempting to learn whether the latest attempt on Curry’s life is connected to last year’s shooting, but so far they have no evidence that it was.

“Right now, Smith is under investigation,” said Lt. Bernard D. Conine. “We cannot say that he is a suspect. The whole thing is being investigated. We know there was an ongoing dispute between them.”

The preliminary hearing on the charges against Smith, 30, including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, possession of rock cocaine for sale and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, was reset for June 20, Deputy Dist. Atty. Myron Jenkins said.

“That will give us an opportunity to assess the medical condition of the witness and to investigate the shooting,” Jenkins said.

Smith, who had been out of jail on $200,000 bail before Tuesday’s shooting, was allowed to remain free despite a request from police that his bail be revoked during the investigation of the latest shooting.

“We do not know if he was involved,” Jenkins said. “We can’t ask for a bail revocation unless there is some proof that he was involved.”

Police said Curry was shot in his home in the 13000 block of Corcoran Street at about 12:15 a.m. Tuesday.

His sister, Theresa Curry, 31, who lives in the home, woke up when she heard the sound of glass breaking, police said. She went into the living room of the home, where an unidentified intruder had broken through a sliding glass door. Police said the man fired a shot at her but missed.

Theresa Curry ran to a neighbor’s home to call police. Meantime, the intruder entered the bedroom where Keith Curry was in bed and fired several shots at him, hitting him twice in the head, officers said.

Police said it was the third attempt on Curry’s life in two years.

On March 15, 1986, Curry suffered a serious leg injury when a bomb exploded in his Porsche 914 outside a North Hollywood apartment complex. Curry, a machinist at the time, told police he knew of no reason why anyone would attempt to kill him. No one has been arrested in the bombing.

In the shooting incident last year, police said, Curry was in a parked car on Vanport Street in Pacoima when his brother-in-law, Smith, allegedly pulled alongside and fired a gun at him, striking him in the neck. Police said the motive for the first shooting was not known, but could have resulted from a family dispute or been drug-related.

When Smith was later arrested as the shooting suspect, officers found 10 ounces of rock cocaine in his possession, police said.