Posted on 04/07/2013 9:04:19 AM PDT by redreno
SANTA ANA -- After a day of deliberations, a jury Thursday found Long Beach police officers violated the civil rights of a man who was shot and killed without warning in 2010, awarding his family $6.5 million in damages.
Officers Jeffrey Shurtleff and Victor Ortiz were found liable in the death of Douglas Zerby, 35, who was killed without warning as he sat on the stoop of a friend's apartment playing with a pistol-grip hose nozzle that police mistook for a gun.
In a unanimous verdict in federal civil court, the jury of women and two men found not only that the officers violated Zerby's 4th Amendment Constitutional rights, but that they committed a battery on Zerby and were negligent.
Attorneys for the Zerby family had asked for $21.5 million in damages, and received about a third of that. Zerby's son, River, was awarded $3.5 million, his father, Mark, $2 million, and his mother, Pam Amici, $1 million.
(Excerpt) Read more at presstelegram.com ...
OK, was watching baseball and also reading the news account.
My original post was intended to only raise questions and possibilities.
If Ortiz was in uniform, it could have been a suicide by cop scenario but let’s not speculate. Pointing a weapon at any uniform whether it is suicide or not is reckless and could have predictable results.
However, it appears the jury found as you suggest, that there was no evidence to conclude Zerby intended to point the “firearm” at any human. I.e., that there was no evidence to support the first shooter’s belief he was about to save another officer’s life.
It would be intesting to be able to review the evidence presented to the jury.
Exactly.
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