The pistol-grip water hose nozzle 35-year-old Douglas Zerby was holding that police mistook for a handgun is portrayed during a December 2010 press conferene
UPDATE Tuesday 1:55pm | The Los Angeles Times is reporting that a third Long Beach police officer had a gun trained on Douglas Zerby, the 35-year-old man who was shot and killed in December after police officers mistakenly identified the pistol-grip water nozzle he was holding as a handgun. In addition to the officer armed with a shotgun whom Long Beach Police Chief Jim McDonnell said stood 38 feet away from Zerby and another officer armed with a handgun who stood roughly 23 feet away, the Times reported today that a third officer armed with a telescopic rifle had his firearm trained on Zerby at the time of the shooting.
While this third officer reportedly did not fire his weapon, the Coroner’s Office was unable to connect two of the 12 gunshot wounds Zerby sustained to either the shotgun or the handgun.
Monday 10:14pm | Autopsy results and a preliminary investigation show that a man, whom police officers shot and killed after mistaking a garden nozzle he held for a firearm, had his arms outstretched as if he was pointing a weapon when officers opened fire, authorities said Monday.
Douglas Zerby was fatally shot by Long Beach police officers just before 5 p.m. on Dec. 12 in the 5300 block of East Ocean Boulevard. He was intoxicated and hanging around outside a friend’s residence playing with a pistol-grip style water nozzle.
Neighbors had called police to report a man with a gun on the landing of their neighbor’s apartment.
The nozzle was not attached to a hose, and Zerby had been waving it in the direction of an adjacent residence and had squeezed the trigger before pointing it in the direction of police officers who took cover in the home of the 911 caller, Long Beach Police Chief Jim McDonnell said.
Without announcing their presence or ordering Zerby to drop what they thought was a handgun, the officers opened fire in self-defense, shooting him multiple times in the chest, arms and legs.
McDonnell said the position the 35-year-old was in when he was shot, according to the autopsy, is consistent with the gunshot wounds he sustained.
“The location and pattern of injuries sustained by Mr. Zerby were consistent with someone in a seated position, feet flat on the floor with knees bent and leaning forward with both hands together and raised out in front of him,” McDonnell said.
Officials used a diagram to point out the bullet pattern, including no injuries to Zerby’s thighs and through-and-through bullet wounds on both forearms. He was shot a total of 12 times.
According to the autopsy results, Zerby’s blood-alcohol level was .42, and he also had Diazapam, or valium, and trace amounts of marijuana in his system at the time of his death
Zerby’s family, which has filed a wrongful death suit against the city, and friends staged a protest across the street from the press conference where police shared the latest findings with the media.
Though the autopsy was completed in February, it had remained sealed until yesterday because of the followup investigation.
McDonnell said that he had met with Zerby’s sister and their mother prior to the conference to share the information with them first. He also stated that while it is not the department’s usual protocol to share such specific information about a case that is ongoing, public interest warranted that some details be shared.
In addition to the Long Beach Police Department’s ongoing internal investigation, both the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Department are conducting probes of their own.
Eden Marie Biele said that nothing authorities discussed Monday night changes the fact that the officers never alerted her brother of their presence, nor did they order him to drop what they thought was a weapon.
“You tell me how you get shot here all the way down the chest … in your shoulder … if your arms are like this,” said Biele as she motioned her arms like McDonnell had described. “Had they thrown a rock at him … done anything to indicate that they were there on-site, and were present, my brother would have complied with their wishes.”
McDonnell said that police will never know what Zerby saw, what his understanding was or what he was aware of prior to his death.
“Sadly, we will never know for sure what prompted Mr. Zerby to raise his hands and point the object in that direction, or what he was aware of at that particular time, but that action ultimately resulted in the officer-involved shooting,” the chief said.
A Brief Timeline
The 911 call was received at 4:40 p.m., and the first officer on scene arrived just a minute later. A second officer arrived at 4:43 p.m. and was in the home of he 911 caller by 4:44 p.m. Two additional officers arrived prior to the 4:52 p.m. shooting, McDonnell said.
Nearly eight minutes elapsed between the time that a perimeter was set up and backup, including a helicopter that did not show up until 12 minutes after the shooting, was requested and the officers’ opening fire, he added.
The officers were in the midst of establishing an action plan when Zerby raised his arms toward the two officers inside the 911 caller’s residence, placing the officer armed with a shotgun directly in the line of fire. That officer was 38 feet from Zerby, while the officer with a handgun was 23 feet away, the chief said.
Zerby’s family, which paid for a private autopsy, disputes these distances. Biele said she physically measured the distance from the landing where Zerby was sitting and the window from which police opened fire, and it measured only 11 feet, 4 inches.
Eight of Zerby’s gunshot wounds were linked to a handgun and two to a shotgun. The remaining two could not be conclusively linked to a weapon by the Coroner’s Office, the chief said. He was also grazed by bullets three times.
The family continues to call for an independent review of the case by the U.S. Department of Justice. They are also pursuing the criminal prosecution of the officers involved and are calling for the department to augment its use-of-force policies.
Family members and friends of the 35-year-old have staged various rallies and protests demanding justice for Zerby. Click here to see photos and watch a video from a January rally held outside LBPD headquarters downtown.
McDonnell said the investigation will take a few more months to complete, and a review of the department’s policies and procedures to ensure they were properly adhered to will not be initiated until the investigation is finalized and the two officers are back on the job.