Zerby, who was unarmed, was shot twelve times by two Long Beach Police Department officers while playing with a garden hose nozzle.
[3] At 4:45 pm, LBPD Officers Jeffrey Shurtleff and Victor Ortiz shot Zerby as he was sitting on a step of an apartment complex in the Belmont Shore neighborhood playing with a hose nozzle.
Zerby was drunk with a blood alcohol content of 0.42 percent and was reportedly pointing the nozzle at the officers who arrived at the scene, according to authorities.
[6] Forensics reports would prove their claims false once it was discovered that the water nozzle was found under his thigh, a place it could never have ended up if he were extending it outward like a pistol.
[6] In November 2011, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office declined to file charges against Ortiz and Shurtleff in the shooting, citing that they acted in self-defense.
[8] Douglas Zerby's family and their lawyers, Dale Galipo and Bryan Claypool, filed a lawsuit against the city of Long Beach and Victor Ortiz and Jeffrey Shurtleff.
[4] Roger Clark, a former lieutenant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, testified that the officers did not need to shoot Zerby and had no reason to not give him an opportunity to drop the nozzle before using deadly force.