Parents called for mental health help. Police showed up instead and killed their son.
Parents called for mental health help. Police showed up instead and killed their son.
Less than 10 seconds after officers opened the door, police shot Yong Yang in his parents’ Koreatown home while he was holding a knife during a bipolar episode.
Parents in Los Angeles’ Koreatown called for mental health help in the middle of their son’s bipolar episode this month. Clinical personnel showed up — and so did police shortly after.
Police fatally shot Yong Yang, 40, who had a knife in his hand, less than 10 seconds after officers opened the door to his parents’ apartment where he had locked himself in, newly released bodycam video shows.
You'd think by now people would have realized that calling the cops on your mentally ill relative is a death sentence
They didn't, they called for mental health support and they decided to bring in the cops.
The video, which Los Angeles police uploaded to YouTube last Thursday, captured the encounter between officers and Yang. In it, the officers demand that Yang drop a knife in his hand, and an officer, now identified by police as Andres Lopez, shoots him seconds later.
In other words, drop the weapon and I'll shoot.
Thank you officer Lopez.
Again?