21.5 Million Wrongful Death Suit

Written by Adam Peck Category: Wrongful Death April 4th, 2013 2 min read

21.5 Million Wrongful Death Suit : A $21.5 million civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Long Beach over cops fatally shooting a guy holding a gardening water nozzle on a friend’s Belmont Shore porch is now in the hands of the jury. Deliberations began after closing arguments at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana, where jurors must decide whether police were at fault and what damages the city should pay for the 2010 killing of 35-year-old Douglas Zerby.

Zerby was playing with the pistol-grip nozzle on a home’s stoop in the 5300 block of East Ocean Boulevard around 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, 2010. Long Beach Police later disclosed they’d received a call about a possibly intoxicated man with a six-shooter in front of the same address. Without warning, responding officers Jeffrey Shurtleff and Victor Ortiz shot and killed Zerby.

After four months of rallies, harsh criticism from Zerby’s family and demands for a federal investigation of the police department, Chief Jim McConnell revealed what he characterized as previously undisclosed “facts” like the civilian had extended his arm holding the nozzle as if pointing a weapon at officers. The Los Angeles District Attorney cleared Shurtleff and Ortiz in a November 2011 report.

The cops doing no wrong and sticking to their police training were themes picked up the city’s defense team, which argued in Judge Andrew Guilford’s courtroom that it was a rapidly evolving situation in Belmont Shore that, based on Zerby’s sudden moves, made the officers fear they were in imminent danger that required immediate lethal force.

But the attorney representing Zerby’s mother, Pam Amici, and son, River, countered that even if the evidence supported the defense’s story (and it didn’t, according to the lawyer), that did not change the fact that the man was holding what the cops clearly should have recognized as a water nozzle. The attorney for the dead man’s father, Mark Zerby, accused police of setting out with a dangerous mindset after receiving a 9-1-1 call about a man with “a gun or something.”

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Written by Adam Peck

Expertise: Personal Injury

Adam J. Peck, ESQ is a principal with Peck Law Group, APC. In 2008, Mr. Adam Peck received his Juris Doctorate from Whittier Law School where he graduated Cum Laude. His practice is primarily dedicated to representing Elders, Dependent Adults, along with their loved ones and family members, who have suffered horrific personal injuries.