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.

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.

Now the parents of Yang, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder around 15 years ago, have told NBC News exclusively that they are disputing part of the account captured on bodycam, in which police recount a clinician’s saying Yang was violent before the shooting on May 2.

  • ameancow@lemmy.world
    12·
    5 months ago

    There needs to be a restructuring of the entire law enforcement system so blood-thirsty cops aren’t required to show up at all 911 calls with guns drawn.

    There needs to be accounting and actual oversight from the community, their bosses who pay their checks to ensure they are held accountable and the actual number of times a cop murders a beloved family pet in front of the children, or murders the children, is actually tracked and recorded so we can see how bad the problem really is.

    It’s almost as if we should, collectively, as a society, stop over-funding violent, tight-knit groups who cover for each other and ostensibly “uphold the public trust.”

    • Confound4082@lemmy.ml
      3·
      5 months ago

      I will say, I work ambulance for a very right wing rural community. I have done this for a number of years now.

      While I do have issues at times with our local LEO, they do a good job with not shooting my patients, or their dogs.

      They have done a good job in my community with securing the scene without escalating and then standing back and let us deal with medical/mental health crisis.

      These stories do happen to often, and there are policy changes that need to happen, but there are a significant number of communities that have law enforcement who are acting appropriately and therefore get no news coverage.