"He never knew there was a problem. Police snuck down the corridor and shot him. He was killed in cold blood. He was a drunk sitting on a stoop fumbling with a hose nozzle," Eden Marie Biele [sister of victim] said in an interview with The Associated Press.

From Ken Adachi, Editor
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/dougzerbymurder16dec10.shtml
December 16, 2010

35 Year Old Man Playing with Garden Hose Nozzle on Friend's Back Porch Murdered by Long Beach, California Police (Dec. 16, 2010)

I was listening to details of this story all afternoon long on the John & Ken radio show on KFI Radio ( 640AM) on Monday, December 14. The shooting took place on Sunday, December 13, 2010, between 4:40 and 5 PM in the Belmont Shore area of Long Beach, California, a relatively upscale, crime-free community. A 35 year old man, a former competitive swimmer and professionally trained diver, Doug Zerby, was sitting on the back porch steps of his best friend's second floor apartment playing with a garden hose nozzle (not attached to a garden hose) when suddenly shotgun blasts and automatic fire opened up on him, riddling his body with bullets.

The members of the Long Beach Police Department who shot Doug Zerby were hidden from his view, having taken up "tactical positions" in the bushes below him and in adjacent apartments. They opened up on him and took his life in a hail of bullets without uttering even one word to alert him to their presence.

In what has to be one of the most profane and shameful displays of cowardice and self-serving perfidy, Long Beach Police Chief James McDonnell told reporters at a press conference that officers were justified in shooting Zerby because "...the subject was in a seated position, he used a two-handed pistol-grip hold on an object with his arms fully extended," Chief McDonnell said. "When Mr Zerby pointed it at one of the officers, both policemen fired their weapons, a handgun and a shotgun."

Thus ended the life of Doug Zerby, father of an eight year old boy, who thought he was playing it safe by hanging out on his friend's back porch waiting for a ride home, rather than risk being caught by the police driving under the influence of alcohol. How could he possibly know the cops were setting him up for an ambush?

He had been drinking. It was a Sunday afternoon.

Doug's father called into the John & Ken radio show and told them that Doug had been unemployed for a while. It's hardly unusual for a man in his situation to drink alcohol on a Sunday afternoon. There's no crime in drinking alcohol or to be drunk, for that matter, assuming your standing on your friend's back porch in the middle of the afternoon. The police knew he was drunk because the paranoid neighbor who reported him to the police said he looked drunk. The same paranoid neighbor also told police that he thought Doug was holding a little antique-looking pistol. He called it a "tiny six shooter".

So now, a crack team of crime fighters from the City of Long Beach, California descend on Doug Zerby's friend's apartment with the stealth of a FBI SWAT team as if they were going to take out The Zodiac Killer ~ all based on the statements supplied by an unknown neighbor who now is assigned the status of expert in firearms recognition.

Chief McDonnell told reporters that his policemen had shot two rounds from a shotgun and 6 rounds from automatic weapons. However, one article posted on the internet by a man who claimed to be a friend of Doug Zerby, said that there were 27 shots fired at Doug Zerby. It you look at the photos of the murder scene you can see multible bullet holes along the balustrade of the back stairs and holes in the wall. If you look at the enlarged photo of the garden hose nozzle (in the police conference video clip seen below), you can see that there is NO handgun in existence that has such a short and large diameter "barrel." It's easy to see that the tapered yellow plastic ring at the end of the nozzle resembles NOTHING seen on any handgun. It's simply ludicrous that policemen, supposedly trained in weapons and firearm use, cannot recognize that this is a spray nozzle and not a handgun. You will also notice that Chief McDonnell's face becomes increasingly red as the news conference proceeds.

The Chief said that his department was anxious to be as "transparent" and forthcoming as possible. I guess that's why they kept the family of Doug Zerby waiting SEVEN HOURS before admitting to them that they had shot and killed Doug. You can see from the video that Doug's sister only finds out that her brother was blasted with a police shotgun when the 'transparent" police chief announced it to the room full of reporters.

Most disturbing in watching the video clip of Chief McDonnell at his press conference is his attempt to maintain the pretense that Doug Zerby was doing anything that would justify shooting a man in cold blood, by police hiding in ambush mode, without giving him a word of warning before taking his life.

If we lived in a reasonable world, where just men held positions of power, Doug Zerby would not have been shot on December 13 because a reasonable police depratment would limit their police recruits to men of reason, character, and good judgment; men who possessed the intelligence and prudence to make a decision which strove to protect and preserve life, rather than treat a human life like it's a throw away tissue.

If we lived in a reasonable world, police recruits would be trained at police academies where the curriculum would emphasize the diffusing of hostile emotions and tense confrontations. The emphasis would be on defence, rather than offense and the brute application of iron fisted domination and "compliance" against people-who are in most cases-not doing anything to justify heavy handed, jackboot treatment.

Someday, we may live in that world, but 'someday' will never come as long as we have inhuman thugs masquerading as policemen.

Ken Adachi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ple6TRAOBYo&feature=player_embedded

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poXCJ_liXTQ&feature=player_embedded

 

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Related

Police officers admit shooting dead father who was holding a GARDEN HOSE nozzle after mistaking it for a gun

Long Beach Police Shooting Angers Family FOX 11 News video report.

http://mtnweekly.com/unarmed-man-killed-by-long-beach-ca-police-27-shots-fired-10149

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Comments

http://economy4abc.blogspot.com/2010/12/update-on-doug-zerby-shooting-long.html

Doug was murdered by the Long Beach Police Department-pure and simple. The LBPD are a band of reckless thugs who need federal oversight in lieu of an impotent city government and a city council more concerned with preserving the wetlands and keeping WalMart out of Long Beach than protecting core civil rights the people of Long Beach enjoy under the U.S. Constitution. These trigger happy gangsters who play policeman are way overdue for a spanking. I spoke with a local judge about this and his response is just like the rest of the enablers who say "well, you know, long beach has a lot of crime", similar to the clown who says the problem is head shops and pot. No, the problem is police brutality, unchecked and illegal violations of basic civil rights, and the tendency for people in positions of power throughout the city to put thier head in the sand and pretend not to see it. THERE WAS NO WARNING!!! He never had a chance. That's called premeditated murder. The fact that it happened in Belmont Shore, on private property. I mean, Jesus Christ, bullets were flying into nearby apartments. The LBPD are way out of control - period. They are a Nazi-like group of deviants who have become more like city-sanctioned gang members, much like the ones they use to justify all of this excessive force to begin with. I've got an idea! How about firing someone for not doing their job right and getting a solid citizen killed? And who gives a shit if he was drinking? Was he driving? Was he causing some kind of clamor? No. He was sitting in a quiet tucked away building in a quiet tucked away part of the city. This wasn't on Canal St. or in North LB. That shows you what little regard the LBPD has for it's citizens, wherever they may be. And tell the 911 caller the next time he thinks he sees someone with a gun outside to put on his fuckin' glasses and think twice the next time he "drops a dime" and jumps to the wrong conclusion.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010

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