Posted on 12/15/2010 6:28:43 PM PST by marktwain
The 35-year-old Long Beach man killed in an officer-involved shooting Sunday was holding a pistol-grip water nozzle, not a gun, Long Beach police officials said Monday.
Two officers responded to a 911 call at 4:40 p.m. Sunday from a neighbor reporting an intoxicated man holding a "six-shooter" in the 5300 block of East Ocean Boulevard in the upscale Belmont Shore neighborhood.
"The officers had a position of cover and were observing the suspect while other officers were en route," said Sgt. Dina Zapalski, a spokeswoman for the Long Beach Police Department.
Zapalski said Douglas Zerby had been sitting on a stoop playing with what appeared to be a weapon and pointing it at objects as if it were a gun. He extended his arms and pointed in the direction of an officer. Police said they did not have time to make their presence known or to tell Zerby to drop the weapon before opening fire because they believed he was a threat.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
A similar thing happened in Fl a couple of weeks ago. A deputy pulled over an intoxicated man. As the officer was getting out of his cruiser the man opened his car door and began shouting at the LEO. The man began to approach the LEO. The LEO said he saw something gleam and opened fire. There were no weapons found, the police believe it was probably the victims watch that caught the light. No charges were pressed on the LEO because it was determined to be a split second decision.
Moral of the story, if you are loaded stay the ... home.
If the fellow had had a dog in the yard his own life might have been spared. If the police go to someone’s door they have the option to shoot someone. If there is a dog present they must shoot the dog to fulfill their union work rules and let the human live for the time being.
Whether or not they can tell the difference is irrelevant. When there is an opportunity it must be seized. It may be weeks before another opportunity arises.
Binoculars would not prevent anything. There is a different attitude now. Killing a citizen is a union perk.
Seems to me the guy would still be alive had the neighbor not flipped out over a water nozzle. That had the police primed for a threat long before they got out of the car.
Those taxpayers deserve the loss for hiring that city government and police force. The officer who killed the citizen will be commended eventually with an official certificate.
The responding officers were primed for a 'man with a gun', likely cranked up on their own adrenaline when they got there.
The neighbor should be chewing crap at least as much as the officers, imho.
Well, I guess we can say you deserve Obama and 14 trillion in Federal debt.
Better send the neighbor back to the police academy....
My point is, they supposedly spend *lots* of money on LEO training, so events like this can be avoided..
From what I know of this, this was just a really bad shoot.
Long ago, after my wife and I had been peripheral to several Child Protection actions we determined that we would never call authorities about child abuse unless we truly believed the child in question was in IMMEDIATE danger of his life. The state has its own institutional child abuse systems that are worse and will last much longer with far less chance for the child to escape it than most of what we see as child abuse. More and more I have learned to apply a parallel reasoning to police. If I do call the police about a crime in progress I will then get out of the area before they come. I don’t like the thought of being “mistaken” for something.
If you had read my entire post and not excerpted you would realize that I was addressing only ONE point thus my response to your post on that point is GO READ MY ENTIRE POST. The rest of your ramblings are not relevant to my post so I will just ignore.
And in those days it was legit to shoot a fleeing felon. Mainly that meant that when someone heard a cop shot “Stop!” he stopped. Nowadays shooting a fleeing felon will get a cop at least fired but shooting a dog in a man’s yard or shooting a man on a porch with a water nozzle will get a certificate of commendation for the cop, even if he first has to be suspended for a few days.
And in those days it was legit to shoot a fleeing felon. Mainly that meant that when someone heard a cop shout “Stop!” he stopped. Nowadays shooting a fleeing felon will get a cop at least fired but shooting a dog in a man’s yard or shooting a man on a porch with a water nozzle will get a certificate of commendation for the cop, even if he first has to be suspended for a few days.
If you had read my entire post and not excerpted you would realize that I was addressing only ONE point
Yeah? But you responded to my post which was a generalization, not just one single point..
I suggest you relax, and lay off the caffeine.
> “...attacked by hordes of AIDs infected cannibals”
.
I see that you spend time at San Francisco Board of Supervisors meetings...
I opened with a statement that I had MIXED feelings on the general statement and went on to explain one point that I had mixed feelings on and was relevant to the main topic of the thread. Then you go on a rant. You are the one that should relax and lay off the caffeine. I am the one responding in a logical and calm manner.
How long did it take for you to make that thing?
The police get the call, 'man with a gun', and the responding officers are expecting to see just that. They're adrenalined up, primed for a fight, got that OK corral twitch, and they 'see' what they expect to see--briefly as the guy points it at them. The rest is survival instinct.
I know they should have recognized it for what it was, but tweak the lighting angle a little and that button of brass in the end looks (in shadow) like the Holland Tunnel, and bore on, it's hard to say what he had in his hand, but it's pointing at YOU.
Yeah, when the dust settles, it was a bad shoot, a very bad one. But the BS the neighbor primed the situation with came out to be a load of crap on the officers, and worse on the guy the neighbor alleged to be a perp.
Enough of your carping already.
I concur.
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