Bullet Cuts Down Man, Promising Show Biz Career

The shooting death of a young man pursuing his goals in the entertainment industry sparked an angry call against violence at a Tuesday night vigil.

Robert Demond Guillory, 25, a personal assistant for an ABC sitcom and former Dorsey High School athlete, was killed Saturday near Stocker Street and Crenshaw Boulevard.

Guillory, who was driving alone, was waiting to make a left turn when he was shot by a gunman who accused him of being a rival gang member, police said. He died later at a hospital. Police and relatives said he was not a gang member.

The gunman, a woman and another man fled the scene near the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza mall in a 1995 or 1996 silver four-door Honda, said LAPD Southwest Division Capt. Morris Smith.

On Tuesday, about 100 people--family members, community activists and friends--gathered at Leimert Park to ask the public’s help in finding Guillory’s killer and to stop senseless violence.

“Three-thirty in the afternoon,” said an incredulous Khalid Shah, executive director of Stop the Violence. “We know somebody saw this.”

Karim Abdul-Jabbar, a Miami Dolphins running back who played football with Guillory at Dorsey High, said: “What hurt me so much is not the death but the senselessness and ignorance of the death.”

After graduating from Dorsey in 1994, Guillory received his bachelor’s degree from San Jose State University, his family said. At the time of his death he was working on the show “My Wife and Kids,” starring actor Damon Wayans. Guillory’s dream was to produce musical scores for movies, cousin Anissa Brown said.

He spoke of marrying his girlfriend of three years and having kids, she said. “They would tease each other, ‘If we win the lottery tonight, one of us has to ask the other to marry them,’” Brown said.

There have been seven homicides so far this year in the Southwest Division, the LAPD’s Smith said.

The family asks that donations be forwarded to the District Attorney’s Crime Prevention Foundation in memory of Robert Demond Guillory, 320 W. Temple St. Room 1162, Los Angeles, CA 90012, Attn: Cyndi Voltz.

Anyone with information may call the LAPD at (213) 485- 2417.