Wounded GI shot at homecoming party

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif.

- Police yesterday were searching for a 19-year-old suspect in a shooting that wounded a soldier at his homecoming party after he survived a suicide attack in Afghanistan.

San Bernardino police have identified Ruben Ray Jurado as a suspect in the Friday night shooting of 22-year-old Christopher Sullivan.

Family members said that Sullivan, a Purple Heart recipient, suffered two gunshot wounds, which shattered his spine and left him paralyzed.

At the party, Sullivan's brother got into an argument over football teams with Jurado, who was an acquaintance of Sullivan and had played football with him in high school, police Sgt. Gary Robertson said.

Jurado punched Sullivan's brother and Sullivan intervened. Jurado then pulled a gun and fired multiple shots, hitting Sullivan in the neck, Robertson said.

Sullivan was wounded in a suicide bombing attack last year in Kandahar while serving with the 101st Infantry Division. He suffered a cracked collarbone and brain damage in the attack and had been recovering in Kentucky, where he is stationed. He was home on leave when the shooting occurred.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Sullivan joined the military in 2009.

Fabian Salazar, a soldier who served with Sullivan in Afghanistan, said that Sullivan rushed back to try to rescue other soldiers after the bomb blast propelled him several feet, leaving him dizzy and disoriented.

"I know he would take a bullet for his brother," Salazar told the newspaper. "And if you asked him again after all this . . . if he would take a bullet for him again, he would say yes. That's the type of person he is."