A Los Angeles police officer who killed a mentally ill man in Koreatown last year adopted suspicious tactics but was justified by using lethal force, the department’s watchdog ruled on Tuesday.
The police commission agreed with LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell by a split 3-2 vote, and the officers reasonably believed his life was at risk when he fired three rounds at a man who repeatedly ignored commands to drop the knife.
The man killed, 40-year-old Yong Yang, was diagnosed with bipolarity and was acting irregularly inside his family’s apartment when the shooting occurred.
Director Andres Lopez joined LAPD in 2017 and was involved in shooting at another duty four years ago.
In a unanimous vote, the police commission, which determines whether LAPD shootings and other serious use of force is reasonable, is unhappy with Lopez’s tactics that go against McDonnell’s recommendations by determining that Lopez’s actions violate departmental policies.
The panel’s decision concluded an 11-month investigation into the May 2024 shooting. This elicited rage from the public and sparked debate within the American community in Korea about what role police should play in dealing with people in crisis.
Yang’s parents filed an illegal death lawsuit against the city, claiming that officers have other options, including so-called less lethal weapons, but were unable to exhaust them before resorting to lethal force. The parents also accused them of holding them in the dark for hours of their son’s death.
Before Tuesday’s vote, Yang’s mother, Myung Soog Yang, appealed to the committee to hold him accountable. Her son told the commissioner she would have turned 41 on Monday.
“Instead of celebrating, I was sad,” she said during the meeting’s public comment period. “He was scared, confused, and needed help, so I asked him for mental health support. But instead of treating him with caution, they treated him like a criminal.”
The city denied any fraud in response to the lawsuit.
The fatal encounter with Yang began after Los Angeles County mental health clinicians summoned police to their family’s two-storey apartment in the 400 block of South Gramercy Place. The clinician appointed as a defendant in the family case argued that Yang’s actions had become too aggressive. The family disputed the characterization.
According to a report prepared by the LAPD chief, Lopez and his police partner were the first two officers on the scene, and body-covered camera footage released last year showed they were talking to Yang’s father and explaining their options to him. One of the officers hears her father tell her that if he arrested Yang for trespassing, he would not be able to place him in a 72-hour mental health hold.
The officer tried to talk to Yang, but he locked himself inside the apartment and refused to open the door.
Eventually, police demanded backup and called for a private ambulance to transport Yang to a nearby hospital.
After deliberations, the officers decide to enter the apartment and obtain the keys from Yang’s father.
Lopez and another officer found him standing in the middle of the living room. He began walking towards the officers, yelling at him to drop the knife before Lopez could fire, shooting three times in under two seconds.
The LAPD Internal Review Board raised the question of whether officers were not allowed to enter the apartment instead and were relieved of conflict. According to the Chief’s report, officers felt they could not leave the scene as Yang was believed to be trespassing.
In an interview with investigators, Lopez said he was afraid of his life when he saw Yang approaching his face with an angry expression. Lopez said his departmental training could pose a threat even when the knife suspect is a few feet away.
“To be honest, I didn’t want to shoot him, but it felt like I was going to cut me or cut my partner,” Lopez said. “So I felt like I had no choice but to drain the firearms to stop the threat.”
Yang’s death was one of several in recent years, including a mentally ill person with a knife, sword, or other sharp object shot by police.
An analysis of police shootings since 2018 by the Times found that LAPD officers fired at least 56 times on people in crisis who held “rimmed weapons” for five years.
Lopez previously shot dead a mentally ill man who was waving what turned out to be a replica handgun outside the Olympic Division police station in 2021.
The shootings occurred despite policies that prioritize evacuation techniques and the use of “less lethal” alternatives, such as a round of bean bags aimed at conquering people without relying on firearms.
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