A security guard who shot and killed a knife-wielding man who had previously stabbed two customers in the downtown Target Corp. store in 2022 has reached a settlement with the retail store chain and other entities he sued.
Attorneys for Enedino Espinoza filed court papers on Thursday with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lee S. Arian notifying him of the accord, but no terms were divulged. Espinoza had also sued BOP FIGat7th LLC and Universal Protection Service LLC.
Espinoza is a former Los Angeles Police Department officer who left the department in 1997. In his suit, he alleged he suffered emotional distress from witnessing the death of the man he shot, David Franklin. Espinoza also contended that Target and the property owners should not have allowed a mentally ill man to enter the store and have access to knives for sale.
The stabbings occurred Nov. 15, 2022, at the Target store in the FIGat7th shopping center shortly after 6:20 p.m. Brayden Medina Molina, then 9 years old, and flight attendant Joo Hye Song, then 24, were stabbed by Franklin after he ripped open a package on a shelf, removed the knife and attacked the pair.
Song and Brayden settled their own consolidated litigation with Target in 2024.
Espinoza was a security guard contracted to work within the store. The series of events from start to finish lasted about four minutes, according to the Target attorneys’ court papers.