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.
Yea I’m gonna have to disagree with you hard on this one. Just because you dislike police or have had bad experiences does not mean you should let someone having a crisis subject others around them to a very real possibility of imminent danger because “cops bad”.
Do police need more training? Sure. Do they need major reform in many areas? Of course. But are they all bad? No.
The mere presence of a cop, even without a visible weapon, will escalate any situation regarding mentally unstable people. Period.
If you don’t understand why a person going through a crisis would freak out when a figure of (ultimately violent) power appears right after they picked a weapon you have a serious problem with basic empathy.
For the record, I haven’t had any bad experiences with cops, in fact every interaction I’ve had so far has been either neutral or actually pretty nice. I’ve had my fair share of breakdowns as a teenager tho, and I can assure you that a cop would’ve never helped a single time. Even the nicest one.
Look at the report for this case, for example:
Here’s the singular question:
What was the rush?
They needed to take him in, but they are afraid of him acting erratic and wielding a knife.
Why the fuck do they push to enter the building? There was no one in there. He could not hurt anyone while he remained hold up inside other than himself.
Why couldn’t they just wait him out?
By pushing to resolve the situation immediately and forcing their way in, they exasperated the situation.
I think they should have been called, but they should be there as backup in case someone is getting attacked. But no one was in danger here. There was no reason to push this.
You missed the options of using “less lethal” force as well, why go for live ammo immediately?
One of my biggest complaints with police and why things escalate unnecessarily is because they are fucking impatient. They give “orders” and if you don’t comply immediately you are met with force.
As someone who has been on the receiving end of one of these sorts of calls, please for the love of everything holy, shut the god damn fuck up. Truly you have absolutely no idea what the fuck you are talking about. Calling the cops in a situation like that is so incredibly dangerous and stupid and harmful, you should feel ashamed for defending it. Please rethink your beliefs.
Cops should never be called for mental health episodes
Ever
End of story
You are wrong
1 good cop isn’t gonna stop the other 20 from shooting your family and pets.