S.F. police sued over inaction in slaying
Family suit says man freed despite 911 calls
The family of a woman who was fatally shot by her ex-boyfriend hours after San Francisco police released him from custody sued the city Wednesday, saying police failed take action despite the woman’s repeated calls for help that night reporting that the killer had tried to poison her and had a gun.
Cecilia Lam, 35, died three days after 29-year-old Cedric Young Jr. shot her in the head in her South of Market home before using the gun to kill himself.
Police have said Lam called for help four times on the evening of Oct. 9 and the early morning of Oct. 10. After three of the calls, officers determined that no crime had taken place and allowed Young to leave.
Officers reported taking Young into custody after the third call, when they determined he was drunk, but they released him from the “drunk tank” a few hours later. They were called to Lam’s apartment two more times — once when he tried to break in after his release, and again when he killed her.
San Francisco police officials did not immediately respond to messages seek-
ing comment Wednesday.
According to the lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, Lam first called police when she and a roommate noticed a strange substance in a pasta sauce that Young had cooked for them. They found a discarded container of rat poison in the garbage and believed he was trying to hurt them.
The officers who responded were “dismissive” of their claims, the lawsuit asserts, even though Young had been arrested previously in a domestic violence-related case involving Lam. This dismissiveness continued when Lam and her roommates called police again when Young returned, intoxicated and belligerent, and refused to stop ringing their buzzer, the suit says.
About 30 minutes later, one of Lam’s roommates went outside to talk to Young, according to the lawsuit. When he lifted his shirt to show her a gun tucked in his waistband, she ran back upstairs, and the women called police again.
Police said officers then took Young to jail because he was drunk, and put him in the “drunk tank.” A hold for alcohol intoxication usually lasts about four hours, and he was released several hours later.
He immediately returned to Lam’s apartment, claiming he needed to get his belongings. Officers who responded for the fourth time “ordered” Lam and her roommates to allow him entry, and escorted him into the apartment to get his things, the lawsuit alleges.
An hour later, Young forced his way back into Lam’s apartment and shot her.
Nick Casper, the family’s attorney, said none of the officers who responded to Lam’s apartment advised her of her right to conduct a citizen’s arrest, as they were required to under the state penal code.
“It is clear that he was acting threatening and violent, and the police never treated it seriously,” Casper said. “Because of the police’s failure to follow laws intended to protect domestic violence victims, Cecilia is dead, the community has unnecessarily lost an ambitious woman who devoted her time to issues of social justice and, more importantly, her family has lost a loving daughter.”
After Lam’s death, the city’s domestic violence fatality review panel was reinstated following a resolution introduced by Supervisor Jane Kim. The panel used to gather after each domestic violence death to analyze how authorities might have prevented the killing, but had not met in more than four years.
The panel will reconvene for the first time in a few weeks, authorities said.
Casper said the family was heartened by the return of the panel, and wants their lawsuit to “effect change” and “shine a light on this problem.”
“It was really egregious, the inaction of the police that evening,” Casper said. “There were so many opportunities to intervene and help someone who was in imminent harm, and nothing was done.”