News, Review panel: 2 LAPD officers violated policy in shooting suicidal man armed with knife : detailed suggestions and opinions about Review panel: 2 LAPD officers violated policy in shooting suicidal man armed with knife .
Two Los Angeles police officers broke department policy by fatally shooting a possibly suicidal man who was armed with a knife, according to the Police Commission, which agreed with Chief Michel Moore’s assessment that the man didn’t pose an immediate threat to either officer.
A review of the shooting in December of 22-year-old Margarito Lopez Jr. in the Historic South-Central neighborhood found that Lopez did not pose enough of a threat at the time he was shot to justify the use of deadly force. The commission considered the case in a closed-door session at its weekly meeting Tuesday; it voted unanimously to approve the findings reached in the chief’s report.
The shooting occurred Dec. 18, when police responded to an apartment building in Historic South-Central. Lopez’s sister had called 911 because she was afraid her brother might hurt himself.
Lopez had been acting erratically since coming home earlier that day and at some point pulled out a butcher knife and went outside, his family previously told The Times.
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