Authorities: Cops shot man in back of head

The police bullet that killed a Point Lookout man entered through the back of his head, according to authorities.

The bullet was one of three that a Nassau County police officer fired at the man, Kurt Doerbecker, 23, when police surrounded his home Aug. 30. The other two shots missed, authorities have said.

The police department's chief spokesman, Det. Lt. Kevin Smith, said the district attorney's office was investigating the shooting. "The shot to the subject was toward the rear of his head," Smith said Thursday. "We believe upon completion [of the investigation] that the facts will support that the police actions were justified."

According to police, the officer shot Doerbecker as he ran with a 12-inch kitchen knife at three officers. He had encountered the officers after he climbed out a window of his Bayside Drive home, police said.

Citing the ongoing investigation, police declined to comment on how Doerbecker came to be shot in the back of the head. The officer who fired the gun is from the Fourth Precinct and joined the force in November 2007, police said. The department has not released the names of any of the officers involved.

Police have said the shooting is justified because an officer has the right to use deadly force to protect himself or another person.

In the hours before the shooting, Doerbecker was suspected of being involved in a disturbance at a neighborhood bar and in a burglary nearby.

The lawyer for Doerbecker's family, William S. Petrillo of Rockville Centre, disputes the police account. He said the revelation of where the bullet entered Doerbecker's head is troubling.

"This new development takes an already questionable and highly suspect shooting to a new level and undermines any legitimate claim of justification," Petrillo said Thursday.

Doerbecker's father, Al, said the medical examiner's office told him the bullet entered the center of his son's head and exited from his eye. Thursday was his son's funeral.