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Long Beach police shooting update: Friends say student shot, killed was under influence
Feras Morad, 20, was shot and killed by police on Wednesday after friends say he had a bad reaction to psychedelic drugs.
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"Justice for Feras" Facebook page
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More details are coming to light in Wednesday's shooting death of an unarmed man in Long Beach.
Family and friends said Saturday that 20-year-old Feras Morad of Woodland Hills was partying with friends and became disoriented after using psychedelic drugs.
Morad allegedly refused to comply with orders and jumped through the glass of a 2nd story window, police said in a statement issued Thursday. They added that he had threatened police and that a stun gun used on him failed to bring him down.
Morad's father told NBC4 that police should have used other means to subdue his son.
"Even if he did something — if he was under the influence he should not have been shot," Amr Morad said. "He does not harm anyone."
Feras Morad, an A student and a debate coach at Moorpark College, was about to start college at Cal State Long Beach, his parents told the station.
Friends said Morad and some debate team colleagues were preparing for an upcoming match-up and ended up taking mushrooms. Witnesses told ABC7 that he had been disoriented and unresponsive, but that he hadn't attacked police.
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According to the station:
Friends and witnesses said Morad was not attacking the officer, but that he was in need of medical attention.
"He was in a state of utter distress like he didn't know where he was and he kept moving toward and wasn't responding to the officer. The officer used the Taser, but it didn't hit or wasn't effective," his friend Ryan Fobes said.
Morad was a nationally-ranked debater at El Camino Real Charter High School and at Moorpark College. His family said the debate champion dreamed of becoming an attorney who would represent people in police brutality cases.
A Facebook group titled "Justice For Feras Morad" has called for a candlelight vigil Wednesday night at Woodland Hills' Warner Center Park.
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