Attorneys for Los Angeles County argue in new court papers that the county should be dismissed as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by the parents of a 40-year-old mentally ill man who was allegedly armed with a knife when he was fatally shot by a Los Angeles police officer near Koreatown in 2024, arguing that a county mental health clinician acted properly.
The officer who shot Yong Yang was previously identified by the LAPD as Police Officer II Andres Lopez. In 2021, Lopez was involved in the shooting of the mentally ill man waiving a replica handgun outside the Olympic Division station, according to the parents’ attorneys’ pleadings.
The plaintiffs in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit are Min Yang and Myung Sook Yang, the parents of the decedent, who are suing both the city and county. Their sole cause of action against the county is for negligence. The couple maintains the Yangs called the Department of Mental Health on May 1 and May 2, 2024, after their son had a mental breakdown.
Instead of helping their offspring, two clinicians who arrived at the Gramercy Place apartment confronted Yong Yang “in an aggressive fashion, causing him to become more confused and agitated,” according to the suit, which additionally says the parents believe the workers spent less than three minutes with their son before calling 911.
But according to the county’s dismissal motion filed June 22 with Judge Peter A. Hernandez, Yong Yang’s “immediately aggressive and threatening behavior” significantly limited one clinician’s ability to “build rapport and therapeutic engagement with his client, even despite efforts to actively involve and collaborate with the client’s father.”
The clinician believed there was probable cause that Yong Yang was a danger to others as a result of a mental health disorder and that he should be detained on psychiatric grounds because he was a potential danger to others, according to the county attorneys’ court papers.
When the clinician called 911, he reported that Yong Yang was violent, bipolar and schizophrenic and tried to attack him and Ming Yang, according to the county lawyers’ pleadings, which further state the LAPD assumed control of the scene once its offers arrived.
Los Angeles police previously said several attempts were made to communicate with Yang and encourage him to leave the home, however. he refused. Officers obtained a key from a clinician, went up a narrow staircase that led to the front door and announced themselves.
“As they did so, Yang was observed standing in the living room several feet away, armed with a large kitchen knife,” police said. “Moments later, Yang advanced toward the officers and Andres’ officer-involved shooting occurred.”
Arriving paramedics pronounced Yang dead at the scene, and an 11-inch knife, with a six-inch blade, was recovered at the location, police said.
But according to the lawsuit filed in September 2024, Yong Yang “did not commit any acts of violence against anyone, did not attempt to leave his parents apartment and was not a threat to any member of the public,” and only obtained a knife from the kitchen because he was frightened.
Yang told the officers he believed if he opened the door, “entities would enter and kill him and that he has already been killed multiple times,” according to the suit.
Lopez shot Yong Yang about three times instead of trying to de-escalate the situation, the suit further states.
“Despite a determination that Officer Lopez’s tactical actions in the immediate moments before shooting Yong Yang were a substantial deviation from department-approved tactical training without justification and that Officer Lopez’s tactics warrant a finding of administrative disapproval, the [administrative review] still found his lethal use of force to be within policy,” the suit states.