Suspect In Belmont Shore Alleged Replica Gun Incident Was Sentenced To 60 Days In Jail (Re Theft Of Bicycle Parts), Released Two Days Later, Just Two Days Before 2nd St. Incident

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(Feb. 21, 2018, 6:37 a.m) -- LBREPORT.com has learned that the suspect taken into custody by LBPD (using less-than-lethal rounds and a K9 officer) after a resident reported he had a gun, and officers said they observed him in the middle of 2nd St. just west of Bay Shore Ave. allegedly pointing a possible handgun (that turned out to be a replica) at passing vehicles, was arrested three times since August 2017, most recently on Feb. 4, for which he was sentenced to 60 days in jail on Feb. 14 but was released two days later on Feb. 16, two days before the Feb. 18 2nd St. incident.

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Publicly accessible information on the L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. website indicates that Joel Webster Peterson, 42, was arrested and booked on Feb. 4 for two unspecified misdemeanors. LB City Prosecutor Doug Haubert tells LBREPORT.com that one of the misdemeanors was a drug-related charge that was dismissed when he pled guilty to a misdemeanor petty theft offense related to the theft of bicycle parts.

In February 14 court proceedings, defendant Peterson pled no contest (guilty for criminal trial purposes) to the petty theft charge and was sentenced to three years summary probation, 60 days in jail plus a "stay away" order as a condition of probation (requiring him to stay away from the location of the thefts indicated as 25 S. 39th Place [which correlates to the location of the popular Belmont Brewing Co.])

Two days after the defendant heard a judge impose that sentence on him, the L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. released him...and two days later he was involved in the Feb. 18 incident on 2nd St.

City Prosecutor Haubert said that as of Feb. 20, his office hadn't received any referral from LBPD on the Feb. 18 incident.

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LASD's website includes other information without details. It indicates the same individual was arrested on December 26, 2017 for an unspecified misdemeanor and released two days later on December 28.

And on August 3, 2017, he was arrested for an unspecified misdemeanor and released on August 7.

In a separate incident previously reported by LBREPORT.com, on October 30, 2017, a father walking with his two daughters along Second Street at Nieto Ave. (less than a third of mile from the Feb. 18 incident) where he encountered another man who struck him in the face and was later found by LBPD officers yelling and screaming. LBPD arrested the 39 year old alleged assailant; LB's City Prosecutor's office filed misdemeanor battery charges; the defendant pled guilty, was sentenced to 180 days in jail and was released the next day.

The L.A. County Sheriff's Dept told LBREPORT.com at that time that LASD has a policy in which persons sentenced to up to 180 days in jail for misdemeanor crimes are allowed to leave on the same day they're sentenced.

The Feb. 18, 2018 incident along pedestrian and vehicle filled 2nd St. triggered a large police response in which officers used what are officially described as less than lethal tools plus a K9 to take the allegedly non-compliant suspect into custody.

As separately reported by LBREPORT.com, third-party VIDEO has surfaced on YouTube of the Feb. 18 incident. The video shows the suspect, the response of LBPD officers [audibility of their interaction and the suspect's words is difficult], the officers' use of less-than-lethal rounds and a K9 unit, and the reaction(s) of a crowd that gathered and observed across 2nd St. Among those in the crowd observing and recording video was Jeff Blackmon, who posted his video on YouTube and made it publicly embeddable. [Caveat: some rough crowd language.]

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In December 2010 not far from the location, officers fatally shot intoxicated Douglas Zerby, reported by a resident to be holding a hand gun that turned out to be a hose nozzle.

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