Deadly Feud Baffles Friends of Victim, Suspect : Violence: Paramedic is slain after an argument with tenant. A professor at Cal State Long Beach is being held on murder charges, but claims he feared for his life.

The two men were opposites in many ways. One was a university professor, soft-spoken and cerebral, who liked to read and work on his computer. The other was a muscular, hard-driving paramedic who always fought to win, whether it was a softball game or a patient’s life.

They met six weeks ago, when Eric L. Hansen, 53, assistant professor of management at Cal State Long Beach, answered a newspaper ad for a bedroom for rent at the home of the paramedic, Anthony J. Dzida, 37, and his wife, Karen.

Hansen moved in.

Six weeks later, Dzida was dead, shot in the chest by his new tenant, Long Beach police say.

On Thursday, more than 400 people gathered at the First Congregational Church in Long Beach for his funeral services. The Long Beach Fire Department paramedic was slain last Saturday as Hansen prepared to move out of the house.

The circumstances that led to that deadly confrontation in Dzida’s attractive blue-and-white Colorado Street home are still murky. Dzida’s family and friends and the police call it murder, while Hansen’s attorney, Gregory Silver, says it was “justifiable homicide. The man was in fear for his life.”

At the funeral, Dzida’s best friend, Jorge Pedroza, described him as a “tough, macho, competitive person” who was “inside that thick armor a warm, giving, sensitive and loving man.”

Firefighters from Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties drove their fire engines in a funeral procession through the streets of Long Beach, with Dzida’s flag-draped coffin mounted in the back of a restored antique firetruck.

Hansen remains in custody on murder charges after pleading not guilty. Those who know him struggled to make sense of Hansen’s role in the tragedy.

“In all the time I’ve known him he’s been a peaceful, nonviolent person,” said Jon Monat, a colleague and professor at the Cal State Long Beach School of Business Administration. Hansen has been an assistant professor of management there for two years.

According to reports, Long Beach police officers went to the Dzida home Saturday morning and found Dzida dead of wounds from a small handgun and an agitated Hansen saying: “I shot to make him leave me alone because I thought he was going to kill me.”

Hansen, who is divorced with two teen-age daughters, had spent several years working for IBM, General Electric and a management consultant firm before obtaining a doctorate in business administration at the University of Tennessee and joining the Cal State faculty. Until he moved to the Dzida house, he had been living in campus housing.

Dzida had been a paramedic for two years, after three years as a Long Beach firefighter and seven years as a firefighter in Riverside County. He and his wife had purchased their $475,000 home nearly a year ago. The home, a renovated two-story house, is the most elegant on the quiet tree-lined block of neatly kept wood and stucco bungalows.

Dzida had decided to take in a boarder to help offset their mortgage payments, said Long Beach Fire Department spokesman Bob Caldon.

According to Hansen’s girlfriend, Jami Caldwell, Hansen found out after he moved in that he was not allowed to bring any guests into the house, including Caldwell. He was also unhappy that his two daughters, who were planning to visit, would not be able to stay with him, she said. Caldwell, who has known Hansen for two years, said the pair then decided to rent an apartment together.

According to the police report, Hansen said on June 30 he gave Dzida a month’s notice, and that “Tony was very upset that he was moving out so soon after moving in.” Dzida then told him not to wait and to move out immediately, Hansen told officers, which is why he was moving Saturday.

The Dzida family has declined to be interviewed. According to Caldon, who has been close to them since the shooting, Dzida wanted to evict Hansen.

Dzida was expected at work early Saturday for a 24-hour shift. But “ill feeling” had developed between the two men in recent days and Dzida was worried about leaving his wife alone with Hansen, Caldon said.

“Everything was boxed up but this guy wasn’t doing anything,” Caldon said, adding that Dzida reportedly told Hansen: “I want you out before I go to work.”

Attorney Silver said that Hansen had rented a truck and was waiting for friends to arrive to help him move. Hansen had had hip-replacement surgery a year and a half ago and feared falling and injuring himself. “He could not move the boxes because of his condition,” Silver said.

Hansen told police he thought Dzida was going to attack him. Still unknown is why Hansen had a loaded revolver.

A few doors down from where the confrontation was taking place, Pete Blagaich was reading the newspaper. “All of a sudden I heard yelling: ‘Help! Help! No! No!’ and gunshots rang out,” he said. He and his wife, Jurhee, looked outside and saw Hansen at the curb in front of Dzida’s house.

Blagaich said he had only met Dzida once, but other neighbors said they knew him as a “bullying personality” who had had conflicts with a few neighbors. One who asked not to be identified said Dzida had taken a sledgehammer to a wall between their properties because he disapproved of a repair she had made.

At his funeral, Dzida’s colleagues spoke of the “cold stare” that they jokingly knew as the “Dzida look.” But Capt. D.J. Parkins said: “If I remember anything about Tony, it’s that he cared about people.”

At Cal Sate Long Beach, Robert Deans, dean of the School of Business Administration, said he had never heard any complaints about Hansen at the university. “This was quite a shock,” he said.