The parents of a 31-year-old knife-wielding man fatally shot by Los Angeles police over the summer in Tarzana are suing the city, alleging their son did not pose a threat to officers and that they should have known he was mentally ill.
Sergey Rusanofskiy and Irina Rusanovskaya, the father and mother of Alex Rusanovskiy, brought the lawsuit Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging wrongful death, assault, negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress and civil rights violations.
A representative for the City Attorney’s Office could not be immediately reached for comment on the suit, which seeks unspecified damages.
The LAPD received a call about 6:15 a.m. Aug. 7 that Alex Rusanovskiy was in the middle of the intersection at Reseda and Victory boulevards wearing only boxers below his waist and holding a kitchen knife, according to the suit, which says no one had reported that he had harmed anyone or was a danger to anyone.
The officers en route to the scene discussed the need to de-escalate the situation, including using a beanbag shotgun, according to the suit.
The officers knew or should have known that Rusanovskiy suffered from “mental psychosis” and were aware that he had a pre-existing mental illness, but they made no reasonable attempt to de-escalate the situation and never used non-lethal force, deciding instead without provocation to shoot Rusanovskiy multiple times, the suit alleges.
“Rusanovskiy never posed an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury to anyone, including the involved officers,” his parents’ court papers state.
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