Man Mistaken for Robbery Suspect Is Slain by Deputy

An unarmed black man whom Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies apparently mistook for a Latino robbery suspect was shot and killed by a deputy Tuesday night in a confrontation outside the man’s apartment, only a block from where the robbery took place.

Marcus Donel, 30, described by friends as a devoted family man, had driven into the driveway behind his Hawthorne home when deputies ordered him out of his Cadillac.

Standing in the driveway, Donel “shouted obscenities, failed to comply with deputies’ orders” and appeared to be “reaching for a gun,” according to a Sheriff’s Department statement.

A single shot was fired, mortally wounding Donel.

Deputies did not find a weapon in Donel’s possession or inside his car.

Sheriff’s homicide detectives are investigating the incident.

“The county has a lot of explaining to do as to why a man who was unarmed, who was not a suspect, was murdered,” said Winston McKesson, a lawyer retained by Donel’s family.

Donel was taken by paramedics to Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead 25 minutes after the shooting. Meanwhile, his stepbrother, Terry Curd, who was in the Cadillac at the time of the shooting, was taken into custody.

Quickly Released

But within minutes, Curd was released when liquor store owner Jim Cheong told deputies that Curd was definitely not the man who robbed him of about $200 earlier that night.

The man who robbed him, Cheong said in an interview with The Times, was “definitely Hispanic.” His skin tone, he added, was “very dark.”

Asked to recollect what he had told the Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday night, Cheong said that shortly after the robbery he called the 911 emergency number and identified the robber as “a 17-, 18-year-old Mexican guy.”

A few minutes later, when two deputies came to the liquor store, Cheong said, he again told authorities that the robber was “a Mexican guy”--although he had “very dark skin tone . . . almost like he was black.”

After the shooting, the same deputies who took that report later transported him to identify Curd. Cheong said he again told authorities that the robber was “Mexican.”

As the deputies escorted him back to his store, Cheong said, one deputy “kept talking to me, like he was trying to persuade me I said black. . . . But I didn’t say black. I said Mexican.”

Discrepancy in Builds

In addition to race and age, another discrepancy was evident. The robber, Cheong said, was about 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed about 125 pounds. Department of Motor Vehicles records list the 30-year-old Donel as 5 feet, 9 inches tall and 160 pounds.

Cheong said he did not know if the robber used a car to make his getaway.

The Sheriff’s Department did not respond Wednesday to Cheong’s account. Efforts to contact homicide investigators handling the case were unsuccessful, and department spokesmen said their knowledge was limited to official news releases.

Those news releases did not address the subject of the robber’s ethnicity.

One statement issued early Wednesday said a deputy investigating the robbery spotted “a man fitting the description of the suspect driving a late-model Cadillac.”

A second statement issued in the afternoon stressed a similarity in clothing: “The suspect in the robbery and the man driving the Cadillac were both wearing dark clothing with a black baseball cap.”

The family’s lawyer on Wednesday shielded Curd, 20, from discussing the incident with reporters or sheriff’s homicide detectives.

“The story the sheriffs are telling is not consistent with what the witness saw,” McKesson said.

Names Not Released

Sheriff’s officials declined to release the names of deputies involved in the incident. Sgt. Ernie Roop said it is customary for deputies involved in shootings to be reassigned to desk duties during an investigation.

Roop said the liquor store robbery occurred at 9:50 p.m. and that the description of the bandit was broadcast over police radios 15 minutes later. The shooting occurred at 10:30 p.m.

One sheriff’s patrol car apparently followed Donel’s Cadillac into the driveway behind his house and radioed for another patrol car to provide assistance. When the second patrol car arrived, Donel was ordered out of his car.

According to the Sheriff’s Department: “The suspect shouted obscenities, failed to comply with deputies’ directions, then reached behind his back in the area of his waistband as if he was reaching for a gun. The deputy fired one shot, striking the suspect in the upper torso.”

Roop said deputies probably had no way of knowing that Donel lived at the apartment, located one block north of Cheong’s liquor store. The liquor store is in the unincorporated area of Lennox and the apartment is in Hawthorne.

“If he didn’t commit the robbery,” Roop said, “he probably shouldn’t have been doing what he was doing.”

Extended Family

Donel, according to McKesson, had spent most of Tuesday evening in the $535-per-month, two-bedroom apartment where he lived with his common-law wife, Cheryl Wroten, his 11-year-old and 10-year-old daughters from a previous relationship, and his stepbrother. He worked as an investigator for attorneys and was the extended family’s sole means of support, according to McKesson.

The 1977 white Cadillac was parked Wednesday a few feet from Donel’s bloodstains. Concerned about safety, Donel recently had the vinyl top changed from red to black, McKesson said, to avoid any possibility that the car would be associated with street gangs.

Neighbors described Donel as a friendly man who was devoted to his daughters--”great kids,” apartment manager Stefan Seville said.

Leonard Collier, a longtime family friend, said Donel, while friendly, wouldn’t take any guff.

Donel became angry, Collier said, “only when provoked.”