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.

  • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
    71·
    7 months ago

    Here’s a hypothetical for you, if your son had an episode and took someone hostage with a knife, you wouldn’t call the police?

    Sure, OK, you have found a corner case. Bravo, I guess? We can pretend I was using the modern definition of the word “literally.” 😉

    It doesn’t change the overall point.

    Here’s a hypothetical for you, which is far more likely than your own for an autistic kid. My son doesn’t even have the concept of holding someone hostage, and I venture to guess this is true for lots of others on the spectrum.

    Let’s say he has a knife in his hand because that’s what he happened to have in his hand (somehow) when his fight or flight mechanism was triggered, and now he’s massively overstimulated, and in a meltdown. He’s not trying to hurt anyone (I’m not convinced he knows stabbing someone is an option a knife provides), but he’s waving it around because he is very active with his arms when he’s overstimulated, and he might even try to grapple with someone while holding it, again not really recognizing the potential for great harm. It’s going to be a real challenge to get it from him safely, and someone could get badly injured.

    Do I call the cops in that circumstance? Not if I want to see him sans-bulletholes again. (Not a direct example of what I described, but close enough for these purposes.)

    Edited to add - I read the story in OP, or I read about Linden Cameron, or I read about Elijah McClain (and others) and that’s my son there, or may as well be. Elijah McClain especially - heartbreaking. Nothing about any of those circumstances seems like an outcome I couldn’t imagine with any given group of police. I have no faith that more than a vanishingly small percentage would even see the problem with how these situations were handled, let alone try to do it differently.

    • heartsofwar@lemmy.world
      42·
      7 months ago

      Please, I hope you didn’t take my hypothetical as an attack, I think based on the emoji you understood my position.

      As to your hypothetical, I do understand. I had a cousin that was autistic, probably mid-slightly high functioning, and he did not understand how to adjust his “strength” when putting hands on people while joking vs angry and it resulted in many situations where we had to separate him from the younger children that didn’t know how to guard themselves appropriately.

      My point is that even in a controlled environment, its difficult to handle these situations and ultimately my experiences have informed me enough that despite how much I loved my cousin, I needed to think about the people around him first in certain circumstances.

      My cousin is no longer living, he had a heart attack; however, despite his inability to control his strength, I did allow him to be around my kids, but never alone and never without me being on pins and needles the entire time. Its sad to say that, but ultimately I am just glad he and them got to interact. It brought joy to both of them equally, I’m sure.

      But to answer my own hypothetical, I wouldn’t hesitate to call the cops if I knew my cousin had done something wrong even if he didn’t believe he had. At a certain point, I believe you have to put aside your concern for the unstable person and think more about the ones that could be potentially hurt.

      • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        7 months ago

        Please, I hope you didn’t take my hypothetical as an attack

        I kinda took it as a bit of a strawman, even if unintentional. That’s why I contrasted with a more reasonable one.

        I appreciate that your intent is not to defend police regarding OP or in general. However, as I said elsewhere, are there actually other circumstances where I’d call police? Probably. My original statement was (slightly) hyperbolic.

        However, is it MY fault that I need to do this calculus about whether the folks paid to help might kill my child instead? No, it’s not, and I won’t apologize for it.

        Police have earned their reputation.

        If I can’t count on them to help without killing me or people I love needlessly, I’m not going to call them. I would think anyone, even a cop, would understand this fundamental requirement.

        My cousin is no longer living, he had a heart attack; however, despite his inability to control his strength, I did allow him to be around my kids, but never alone and never without me being on pins and needles the entire time. Its sad to say that, but ultimately I am just glad he and them got to interact. It brought joy to both of them equally, I’m sure.

        I’m sorry for the sad ending to your story, but glad that there were opportunities for joy along the way. These situations are tough, I get it.