Mother of former UCLA player sues city of Los Angeles for wrongful death
The mother of a former UCLA basketball player who killed himself at the end of a barricade in a Sherman Oaks home in 2018 is suing the city of Los Angeles, faulting the Police Department for its tactics.
Liza Stazel’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, filed this week, claims negligence and wrongful death and seeks unspecified damages.
Stazel, the mother of 27-year-old Tyler Honeycutt, says the LAPD failed to de-escalate the situation and get her son prompt medical care.
Los Angeles police said at the time that Honeycutt was found dead after barricading himself for 11 hours on July 6, 2018. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office later ruled that Honeycutt had shot himself in the head.
Stazel called 911 to plead for medical assistance for her son that day, the suit states. She told the dispatcher that her son was having a “mental break” and had not slept in days, was hallucinating and displayed paranoia, the suit states.
His “brains may have been scrambled from previous use of nitric oxide while overseas,” the suit states.
Stazel gave the officers the keys to the house, told them that a shotgun her son had was empty and that a pistol he had contained only three bullets in a magazine, the suit states. She additionally told the officers that her son was acting erratic because of a drop in blood sugar and that he had a history of mental illness, the suit states.
The officers asked Honeycutt to come out of the home, but he responded by asking the officers to lower their rifles, apparently out of fear and intimidation, according to the suit. Mental-health-unit officers arrived, but only after hours of delay, the suit states.
An officer-involved shooting occurred and hours later, SWAT members, assisted by a K-9 team and remote-controlled robots, entered the residence and found Honeycutt on a bedroom floor, the suit states.
“After being shot in the face, Honeycutt was bleeding profusely and in obvious and critical need of emergency medical care and treatment,” the suit states.
The LAPD waited too long to allow medical personnel to treat Honeycutt, the suit alleges.
Officer Jeff Lee, an LAPD spokesman, said the Police Department does not comment on pending litigation.
The Sylmar-born Honeycutt, 6 feet 8 and a small forward, played two seasons with UCLA. He was drafted by the Sacramento Kings in the second round of the 2011 NBA Draft and played 24 games over two seasons with the team. He later played in Russia.
Staff writer Nathaniel Percy contributed to this story.