Man Shot by Police Is Awarded $100,000

A Skid Row liquor store owner who was shot and wounded by undercover police officers after pointing a shotgun at them was awarded $100,000 by the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday as settlement of his lawsuit against the city.

The merchant, Peter Pae Su Kang, was going to the aid of a mugging victim when he was shot three times in the abdomen by the two officers on April 23, 1981, outside a Lucky Market at 308 East 5th St., according to a city attorney’s report recommending the settlement.

Kang claimed that the plainclothes Los Angeles Police Department officers never identified themselves as police, and he believed they were friends of a group of men who were robbing an elderly man near his store.

The officers claimed they did identify themselves and repeatedly ordered Kang to drop the gun. They said they shot Kang only when he pointed the gun at them. The shotgun was later found to be unloaded.

Some firefighters who were putting out a trash fire across the street from the store confirmed the officers’ account. But others said they never heard any warning and thought the undercover officers “looked scruffy and unkempt, and that they were the bad guys,” the city attorney’s report said.

Kang, 53, who now operates another store on the Eastside, lost a kidney, had a ruptured colon, had a colostomy for five months, had four separate hospitalizations for abdominal surgery, had a fractured hip and total sexual dysfunction. His medical bills total more than $30,000, and lifetime medical care will be required, the city attorney reported. Kang’s wife, Chae Yon Kang, joined her husband in the lawsuit, claiming emotional distress from witnessing the shooting.

Assistant City Atty. Philip Sugar said in a report to the council that the settlement “is in the best interest of the city.”

“In view of plaintiff’s serious injury, a potential verdict in this case could exceed the amount of the settlement,” Sugar said.

An LAPD review of the shooting found that the officers acted within the department’s shooting policy. The district attorney’s office also concluded that the shooting was justified because the officers believed their lives were in jeopardy.

The group of men who were attacking the robbery victim escaped, according to Kang’s attorney.