Jury Grants $6.5M to Family of Man Shot by Long Beach Police
A Sana Ana federal court jury granted $6.5 million Thursday to the family of a man shot to death by Long Beach police officers in 2010.
The officers thought 35-year-old Douglas Zerby was holding a gun when he was actually holding a water hose.
The jurors began deliberations Wednesday and came to a decision late Thursday morning.They gave $3.5 million to Zerby's son, $2 million to his father, and $1 million to his mother.
Zerby's family asked for upwards of $21.5 million from the Long Beach Police Department in an ongoing lawsuit.
Zerby was sitting in front of a friend's apartment playing with a water hose that looked like a gun when the officers opened fire. Officers Victor Ortiz and Jeffrey Shurtleff were responding to a report of a man with a gun at a Belmont Shore residence when the incident occured.
During the case, the attorney representing Zerby's family argued that the police officers disregarded Zerby's 4th Amendment rights and were negligent. The Long Beach Police Department's attorney argued that the officers acted appropriately. Zerby was also intoxicated at the time of the incident.
The family's attorney also agrued that the officers did not give any verbal warnings or commands and were not visible when the shooting occurred.
Police claim Zerby held the water nosle, that looked like a gun, at Ortiz which led Shurtleff to open fire to protect Ortiz, making the shooting justified.
