Teen-Ager on Crime Spree Shoots Torrance Man, Is Slain by Police

A Los Angeles teen-ager was on a three-day crime spree Wednesday when he shot a Torrance man in front of a supermarket and then was slain by police following a high-speed chase, police said.

Curtis Lee Toney, 18, died of a gunshot fired by a Torrance officer late Wednesday in the Willowbrook section of South Los Angeles.

Less than an hour before, at 8:20 p.m., Toney had approached Harry Staalberg, 62, of Torrance in the parking lot of the Pavilions supermarket at Torrance Boulevard and Anza Avenue. Toney shot Staalberg once in the stomach in what investigators believe was a bungled robbery attempt, police said. Toney then drove off with an accomplice.

Staalberg was in critical but stable condition Thursday evening at county Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

The incident is the second violent crime in central Torrance in a week. On Nov. 8, Pomona pharmacist Stanley Hoe was mortally wounded in a beating and robbery at a service station two miles east on Torrance Boulevard. Hoe died Tuesday evening at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance.

Police said the two crimes are not connected and that there is no cause for residents to be alarmed, but they noted such violent attacks are unusual in the city.

Capt. Bruce Randall, head of the Police Department’s Patrol Division, called the crimes disturbing, but added, “I don’t see there is any alarming trend occurring. I don’t see it meaning anything dark or gloomy for the city of Torrance.”

The rate of violent crime is virtually unchanged from recent years, Randall said.

Staalberg had driven the two blocks from his home on Victor Street to shop when he was confronted by Toney, police said. The two had a “brief conversation,” although police said they have not yet interviewed Staalberg, an apartment building manager, to find out what his attacker said.

After the shooting, Toney and an accomplice sped east on Torrance Boulevard, while witnesses called police. The car was spotted by police near the city’s Old Downtown.

The suspects drove on the wrong side of the road as the chase continued at speeds exceeding 100 m.p.h. The getaway car evaded its pursuers by speeding through red lights, but it was spotted again in Willowbrook by a Sheriff’s Department helicopter, said Torrance Police Sgt. Ron Traber.

The suspects ran, and officers found Toney hiding atop a shed in a horse stable. Ignoring commands to give up, Toney ran along the top of a wall before spinning and crouching as if he was about to fire a gun, Traber said.

Officers reported that they fired six shots at Toney, striking him once in the chest. No weapon was found. Toney died several hours later at Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center.

Police and deputies cordoned off the neighborhood and searched for several hours, but they could not find the accomplice.

Traber said detectives had determined that Toney, not his accomplice, was the gunman, but added that he did not know how that was done.

Police linked the pair to crimes on Monday in Los Angeles and Tuesday in Pomona because the car used in the Torrance shooting was a Ford Thunderbird stolen at gunpoint the day before in Pomona, police said. The suspects approached a 58-year-old salesman Tuesday morning in Pomona and one held a gun to the man’s head, Pomona police said.

The two had attempted to steal a car from a 26-year-old woman just eight minutes earlier, but they failed when the woman sped off, police said.

And the day before, police said, the same men stole a Subaru in South Los Angeles. That car was found abandoned in Pomona.

No one was injured in the other attacks.