By Associated Press - Wednesday, May 22, 2019

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A civilian panel says Los Angeles police officers violated policy when they opened fire on a knife-wielding man holding a hostage, killing both people.

Guillermo Perez died in a June standoff with police in Van Nuys. He’d grabbed a bystander and held a knife to her throat. Three police officers fired after he refused to drop the knife. Forty-nine-year-old Elizabeth Tollison also died.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Police Commission ruled that two officers violated the LAPD’s use-of-deadly-force policy.

The Los Angeles Times says the decision agreed with a report by Police Chief Michel Moore.

Moore said one officer couldn’t properly see the hostage and the other should have withheld fire because other officers already had shot.

Moore will decide what discipline the officers will face.

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