Families to Demand Murder Charges for Long Beach Police Who Fatally Shot Unarmed Men 9 Months Apart

Relatives of two men unarmed when they were fatally shot by Long Beach police in separate incidents will hold a news conference today outside District Attorney Steve Cooley's L.A. office to demand he criminally charge the officers with murder.

The family of Doug Zerby, shot and killed Dec. 12 in Belmont Shore when officers mistook a hose nozzle he was fiddling with for a gun, and Ismael Lopez, shot and killed Aug. 26 as he tried to leave the scene of a gang stabbing, have the same attorney, who will be at the 4 p.m. news conference.

Zerby was extremely drunk and sitting on a friend's stoop in an interior courtyard bounded by apartments or houses on Ocean Boulevard when a resident called 9-1-1 to report a man outside with what could be a gun. Several officers waited for back-up at different locations around the property and police said they didn't want to speak for fear of provoking potential violence before back-up could arrive. Then, police said, Zerby raised his arms with the nozzle in them as if he was going to shoot, and officers felt he was aiming at them.

Lopez was partially paralyzed from being robbed and jumped several years ago and walked with a pronounced limp that left him unable to run, his attorney and others say. He was on parole for auto theft and visiting friends in the 200 block of East 10th Street when a gang fight broke out and two men were stabbed. Long Beach police reported he was running away from officers when he took some action that caused the motor officer to feel he was threatened, at which point the officer fired five rounds, striking Lopez once in the upper body. Police said a knife was found in the path that he ran but that it was not clear whether Lopez had been carrying it. His attorney said he was not a gang member and, in fact, had been a victim left partially paralyzed in a gang attack.

Answers.org and a second group will attend the rally at 4 p.m. outside Cooley's office in downtown L.A. at 320 W. Temple.

"The Orange County District Attorney's Office justly arrested the police that murdered Kelly Thomas," said Maria Macias, Ismael's brother, in a statement announcing the press conference. She was referring to the case of Fullerton police who beat up Kelly Thomas, who rather vividly described final hours.

"The Los Angeles D.A. should followed this example and arrest the cop that murdered my brother."