The Los Angeles City Council has approved a settlement of a lawsuit filed against the city by the children of a 70-year-old man allegedly shot to death by a Los Angeles police officer in 2017.
The announcement of the accord came during a hearing Tuesday before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James I. Montgomery. No terms were divulged, but the family of the late Alejandro Mendez is scheduled to receive a check by the end of the month.
Plaintiffs Alejandro and Alejandrina Linares, the offspring of Mendez, brought the lawsuit in March 2019, alleging battery, negligence and civil rights violations. According to the lawsuit, Mendez was holding a pipe and appeared to be mentally disturbed when he was confronted by two LAPD officers.
One officer, who was on his first day of patrol, had a stun gun, but missed his target, according to the suit, which further states that the officers left their bean bag shotgun in the patrol car and that the other officer did not have a stun gun.
Only one officer had a body camera but it was turned off, according to the suit.
In a sworn statement filed, the officer who shot Mendez said he had to do so because the man was threatening him and Patel with a metal pipe or pole near Olympic Boulevard and Main Street on March 4, 2017, and that other means to subdue him were unsuccessful.
While en route to the scene, the officers discussed the best way to subdue Mendez, the officer said. After they arrived and Mendez walked toward them with the pipe, Patel fired his stun gun twice, but one dart bounced off one of Mendez’s arms and the second missed him, according to the officer.
“We continued to yell, `Drop the stick,”’ the officer said. “(Mendez) then backed up, but continued to walk around in different directions while still holding the metal pipe and refusing to comply with our orders to drop it. A bystander was yelling at us to shoot (Mendez).”
Mendez again turned toward the officers and took three quick steps toward Garcia while still holding the pipe with two hands, according to the officer.
“I then fired two rounds,” the officer said, adding that Mendez, who was about eight feet away, fell to the ground.
“I fired because (Mendez) was not obeying my commands and I was afraid that he was going to hit me or Officer Patel or the many bystanders with the metal pipe,” the officer said.
In their court papers, defense attorneys state that Mendez was a registered sex offender who had forced his 9-year-old daughter to perform a sex act on him.
Mendez was released from prison in December 2016 and about 10 days later, charges were filed against him for “failure to report,” according to the defense attorneys, who added in their court papers that one of the 911 calls prior to the Mendez shooting came from one person reporting that someone had been hit with the pipe twice before officers arrived.
Mendez was taken to a hospital and was pronounced dead about 1:15 p.m., police said previously.
In 2018, the Police Commission found that the one officer’s use of lethal force to be out of policy, the suit stated. The commission also determined that the officer’s failure to have a stun gun was a “substantial deviation” from approved department tactical training and without justification, according to the suit.