It has been nearly three months since the shooting death of 40-year-old Korean American man Yong Yang by an LAPD officer, but the call for justice continues.
On July 28, the third rally organized by the Justice for Yong Yang People’s Committee (JYYPC) was held at Liberty Park on Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
This is the third rally after the first on June 2 and the second on July 11, but the call for justice has not died down, if not louder.
About 20 organizations, including Korean American nonprofits, participated in the rally, such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) LA, Asian Americans for Housing and Environmental Justice (AA4HEJ), Grandmamas for Crenshaw, Ground Game LA, DSA-LA, Black Social Workers of LA, Koreans 4 Decolonization, Thai CDC, JEPWA Community Land Trust, Laneay London, Code Pink, Koreatown Tenants Union Local, Baldwin Hills, Leimert Park Tenants Union Local, Collective for Liberatory Lawyering (C4LL), 2nd Call, and Save Our Seniors Network (SOSN).
Students from the Korean American Youth Leaders in Training (KAYLT), a nonprofit foundation affiliated with the K.W. Lee Center for Leadership, also joined the rally, as well as U.S. Congressional candidate David Kim and Los Angeles District 10 City Council candidate Grace Yoo.
More than 100 participants at the rally condemned the LAPD’s brutality and demanded that the officers involved in the incident be punished and that the LAPD improve its treatment of people with mental illness. Race and age were not a barrier for those united in their call for change.
“When I saw the bus stop flyer, I knew I had to be there,” said Lydia Yuriaguez, who attended with her 24-year-old son with a mental illness. “When my son was 16, he called the police for help, and they arrested him, like in Yong Yang’s case. I realized then that there is no justice for people with mental illness. We all need to raise our voices to change the system from the root.”
Eighteen-year-old Esther Jang, a member of KAYLT, said, “Even when there are cases of police shootings, students often don’t realize the seriousness of it. It’s a difficult issue, but I wanted to speak out for change.”
At the rally, participants held signs that read “I didn’t invite you,” which were Yang’s last words to the police before his death, “Mental illness is not a crime,” and “Stop police brutality,” demanding that the LAPD take responsibility for Yang’s death.
Speakers at the rally included Yang’s family and Korean American students from KAYLT, as well as members of other communities, including Laneay London, a social worker and longtime advocate for change and reform in mental health justice, and Abdul Malik, minister of the Nation of Islam.
“I still can’t believe that what I thought was just somebody else’s problem happened to my family,” said Yang’s father, Min Yang. “There have been a lot of police shootings lately, but change doesn’t come easily. We need to raise our voices together, even if it will be the hard way.”
“We don’t expect much. We just want to mourn Yong’s unjust death and hope that the officials who did wrong will be punished accordingly,” Yang added.
BY SUAH JANG, HOONSIK WOO [jang.suah@koreadaily.com]
