Back in 2017, LAPD officers shot a 70-year-old man to death and now his children are suing the city over it. It's alleged that the man had been in a state of distress and appeared to be “mentally disturbed” when officers were contacted and they arrived on the scene. It's also alleged that the man had a stick in his hand at the time of the incident.

The officers had allegedly failed to be properly prepared for the incident, with one who didn't have a backup cartridge for his stun gun, and they also left their bean bag shotgun in their car.

The body camera was also turned off at the time of the incident for one officer and the other didn't have a camera.

One of those officers allegedly ended up shooting and killing Mr. Mendez. A police investigation later found that the lethal force used was out of policy with the department and they determined that the officer's failure to have a stun gun on hand was a substantial deviation from what was considered appropriate conduct or approved department tactical training, according to the lawsuit that's been brought against the city.

This isn't the first time that the city has been sued, millions has been spent on their wrongdoing over the years.

There have been multi-million dollar settlements over ticket quotas and millions paid out over charges relating to sexual assault from LAPD officers.

Just in the last few years they've paid over $80 million in legal settlements.

You might also be surprised to find out that it's police officers themselves who are the ones frequently suing departments.

Some of the considerations that they're allegedly looking at for trying to reduce costs is moving cases through the system quicker. But what they should look at instead is the officers themselves who are found engaged in wrongdoing, they pose the greatest liability, and it isn't within the department's best interest to keep them around.

The millions of dollars that has to be spent on these lawsuits is money that the city could've spent elsewhere.

The LAPD has acounted for at least 40 percent of the total settlement fees that have been paid between 2005 and 2018 by the city and the most common payout at roughly 22 percent is coming from accusations of police misconduct.

Aside from looking to push the cases through faster, to shave a few cents here and there, hopefully they'll also consider more serious changes to training so that officers are equipped with skills that can peacefully DE-escalate dangerous situations; reducing the chances of them engaging in wrongdoing. And those who are caught misbehaving should be made an example of, they should receive consequences to their actions rather than protection, so as to hopefully deter other officers from thinking they might be able to get away with it.

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