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…