ASHEVILLE, NC (CelebrityAccess) — Tour coordinator and longtime CAA staffer Pedro Ventura was seriously injured in a shooting earlier this month in North Carolina and has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help defray the costs of his medical expenses.
According to ABC affiliate WLOS-TV, Ventura was leaving Scandals Nightclub in downtown Asheville at about 2AM when an unknown gunman opened fire on a crowd of people outside of the club apparently at random, leaving Ventura with critical injuries.
Police told WLOS-TV that the shooter or shooters may have fired out of a car that was then used to flee the scene.
“I wouldn’t necessarily refer to it as a drive-by, but there was a vehicle involved the suspects were in,” Asheville Police Lt. Sean Aardema told WLOS.
Police are still searching for the assailant and have offered a $5,000 dollar reward for information leading to an arrest.
According to Ventura’s GoFundMe page, the bullet entered his neck and severed his spine at the C4 vertebra, initially leaving him paralyzed from the neck down and unable to breathe on his own.
Since then, through therapy, he has regained partial control of his breathing and movement in his shoulders but still has a long way to go to recover.
The GoFundMe page can be found here.
