Officer Sued by Parents of Slaying Victim : Courts: He is accused of killing man, who was dating his wife. The suit also names

An Anaheim police officer charged with murdering a man his wife was seeing has been sued by the dead man’s parents.

The parents of Paul R. Hangen, 28, on Tuesday also sued the city of Anaheim and the Anaheim Police Department.

The lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, alleges that the Police Department “knew or should have known” that motorcycle officer Thomas A. Minn was “mentally unbalanced and had expressed his intent to commit suicide” and that he “believed that his wife would divorce him as she was romantically involved with Hangen.”

Hangen’s body was found on Dec. 16 in his pickup truck outside a Norco home. He had been shot repeatedly. Riverside County sheriff’s investigators promptly arrested Minn on suspicion of shooting Hangen with his .45-caliber service revolver.

Minn, 36, a 14-year veteran of the department, admitted to involvement in the Hangen shooting shortly after his arrest and was placed on administrative leave. However, he pleaded innocent to murder charges during his arraignment in June.

Hangen was a friend of Minn and had lived for a time at the home of Minn and his wife, Elian Schonberger, 36. Minn and his wife had been estranged for more than a year before the shooting, and she and Hangen had been dating.

In their lawsuit, Phyllis and Robert Hangen of Corona allege that the Police Department should have directed Minn to psychiatric testing and counseling, placed him on administrative leave and taken away his service revolver.