Long Beach Police Shooting
Bad Scene in Belmont :Crying:
LBPD blew big time by sneaking up on this guy sitting in a courtyard
halfway up a stairwell landing playing with a water nozzle.
911 call played in video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ple6TRAOBYo
Sunset was at 4:45 pm and the call came at 4:40 pm.
They arrived within ten minutes.
I can't believe the cops could not tell what it was since it was not dark yet and they were in postition at a couple spots looking at him from behind cover. The last couple inches of the nozzle are not black and are rounded and curve in. The guy was sitting down (on private property) no one else was there in danger of the water nozzle ?
No ' Put down the Water Nozzle ' Just Bullets Flying ?
WTF ? DR
Video showing the area out front. It is just past Dog Beach and right before Mothers Beach.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-aSYeMjJ_k
LONG BEACH -- Long Beach Police Chief Jim McDonnell on Monday expressed his condolences to the family of a 35-year-old man shot and killed by two officers in Belmont Shore Sunday night.
The chief first went to comfort the mother and sister of the slain man, Douglas Zerby, before starting a press conference at 1 p.m. Monday to provide information about the shooting.
However the chief noted that if there was a lesson to be learned from the deadly incident it was that "you are responsible for your own actions."
The chief's sympathy and explanation of the shooting seemed to further upset several of Zerby's relatives, who stood in the back of the room at police headquarters and expressed horror and outrage as details emerged.
McDonnell said officers were called to the 5300 block of East Ocean Boulevard at about 4:40 p.m. after two residents in a nearby unit saw what they believed to be a man with a gun sitting on their neighbor's second-story porch.
"The person who called said a subject with a gun who was unknown to him was on a stairway landing to the rear of the location," the chief said, adding that portions of the recording not played Monday included the caller's name.
In the portion of the call played for reporters the caller told a dispatcher that a man with a gun was sitting on his neighbor's second-story landing and and swaying back and forth.
"It looks like a little tiny six-shooter," the caller said, describing what he thought was a gun.
When the first officers arrived on scene they saw Zerby -- who appeared intoxicated -- sitting on the landing on the staircase to an apartment that was not his residence, the chief said.
The officers also saw what appeared to be handgun and could see Zerby playing with the handle, which sounds similar to that of a handgun.
The officers immediately called for back-up
Douglas Zerby. and began trying to contain the area in case the subject fled and posed a danger to the public, McDonnell said.
Among the units called in were the LBPD helicopter, K-9 units and the department's Mental Health Evaluation Team.
As they were preparing to confront the man he put his hands up and pointed the item with both arms straight forward, as though he were taking aim with a gun, in the officers' direction, the chief said.
The officers never spoke to Zerby, but opened fire, "due to the actions of the subject," McDonnell said.
Later, they found the item in Zerby's hands turned out to be a "black pistol grip water (nozzle) with a metal tip," McDonnell said.
A total of eight shots were fired, the chief said, two from shot guns and the other six rounds from a handgun.
That did not sit well with Zerby's family.
"You shot him with a shot gun," Zerby's sister, Eden Marie Biele shouted before bursting into tears and running from the room.
Zerby's father, Mark Zerby, insisted he counted around 27 bullet holes in the staircase and the apartment building.
Homicide Lt. Lloyd Cox explained after the press conference that each shot gun shell contains nine pellets. The various marks and holes could be from rounds passing through or glancing off the wood frame of the staircase into the building, he said.
"I don't have the ballistics reports yet, but there are a lot of things that can happen," the lieutenant said.
Cox also said the two officers who opened fire are not new to the force, though he did not have their exact years of service.
The chief said they were immediately put through the process of meeting with a police department psychologist and under-going an intense review of the shooting, which is standard for all officer-involved shootings.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office and the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office are conducting their own independent investigations, which is also standard practice, the chief said.
None of that seemed to assuage the raw grief and anger that poured from Zerby's relatives.
They shouted at the chief during the press conference, demanding to know why the officers didn't address Zerby and tell him to drop the item before opening fire.
Reporters also asked the chief why the officers didn't opt for less lethal options, such as Tasers or pepper spray.
The chief said he did not yet know how far the officers were from Zerby, but if the neighbors who told Zerby's family were correct and the officers were 30 to 40 feet away their Taser would not have been effective from that distance.
Zerby's relatives shot back that he may not have even realized the officers were there and that he was known to most neighbors because he was often at the apartment, which is rented by his best friend.
The chief acknowledged that some of the answers the family is seeking may never be known.
"There's only one person who knows all these answers," the chief said.
"That's my dead brother," Biele yelled, with the chief agreeing with her.
Zerby's father said earlier Monday morning that he and his family would be hiring an attorney and their own independent investigators to review the case and vowed to have the officers responsible for Zerby's death removed from the force.
"I don't know what to say other than Douglas was murdered under the color of authority," Mark Zerby said.
Zerby's dad said he was born and raised in Long Beach and graduated from Millikan High School. His son was a gifted swimmer in his youth, ranking 13th in the state at one time.
Mark Zerby admitted his son had problems with alcohol and had been in and out rehabs. But he insisted his son was never a dangerous or violent man.
His sister said her brother was doing the right thing by not driving while intoxicated and staying at his best friend's home.
"You're not allowed to get drunk ... and sit on your friend's porch without being shot-gunned by the Long Beach Police Department," she asked angrily.
She tearfully told reporters that her brother was also a father to an eight-year-old boy.
"I don't know how to explain this to him," Mark Zerby said of his grand son. "It's hard to come to grips with something like this."
Mark Zerby also lashed out at police tactics, saying neighbors told him where the officers were standing and where his son was sitting.
"Douglas was on a balcony on a second floor. From where (the police) were sitting there was no way they could have seen anything in his lap," Mark Zerby insisted.
Lt. Cox said he did not know where Zerby's father thinks the officers were located, but Cox said there was more than one officer on scene and that they could see the object which looked very much like a handgun.
The dad went on to question why authorities chose to immediately open fire on a man who was sitting on the stoop of a friend's second-story apartment and not posing a threat to anyone.
"From what I understand these boys went in guns blazing."
The chief estimated 10 to 15 minutes passed between the time the officers got the call and the shooting.
Several neighbors said Monday that they were saddened by the news of Douglas Zerby's death.
Many said he had a serious drinking problem, but none said they ever thought he posed a threat.
"He was a gentle soul," said a long-time neighbor. "He wouldn't have had a gun. He partied more than the average person, but he wasn't violent."
Several neighbors in the immediate area said they ducked for cover when the volley of gunfire broke out.
Splintered wood on the staircase and holes in the stucco walls of the apartment as well as a small dried pool of blood at the bottom of the stair case remained Monday morning.
Neighbors said it took the coroner until around midnight to arrive and the body was not moved until about 2 a.m.
Few who live close by got any rest due to the lengthy investigation.
Several neighbors said they were denied access to their apartments for many hours because police told them there had been an officer-involved shooting and that they wanted to make sure there were no other suspects.
Forensic experts were brought into at least one neighboring apartment, fueling speculation that a forced entry might have been made or police believed that someone had broken into that unit.
Mark Zerby said even if that were the case, there was no reason why officers couldn't have used less lethal tactics to subdue his son.
"There's a lot of questions that have to be asked and you can rest assured that I'm going to find the right people to ask them," he added. "I'm going to have a good attorney and my own investigators on this ASAP and ... maybe we can get (the officers responsible) off the streets."
Cox said police department officials tried several times to speak with Zerby's family and did talk to his mother and sister at the scene late Sunday.
When officers tried to talk to Mark Zerby at the scene, and later by phone, he refused to speak to police, Cox said.
"We was very angry and upset, which we understand," the lieutenant said. "But we have tried to reach out to him."
tracy.manzer@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1261
