68-year-old Man Uses Car to Target Los Angeles Police Officers NR11102SF

Los Angeles:  In the early morning hours of March 4, 2011, Pacific Area patrol officers saw a man driving erratically. When the officers began to follow the driver, he quickly made a U-turn and attempted to ram several officers in their marked black and white police cars.

Last Friday, at around 4:46 a.m., 68-year-old Michael Lasky was followed by Los Angeles Police Officers assigned to Pacific Area after they saw him driving erratically placing the community at risk. During the following, the suspect made a U-turn and attempted to ram several of the officers in their police cars, one of the supervisors monitoring the following conducted a Precision Immobilization (PIT) maneuver which successfully disabled Lasky’s car.  The suspect’s car came to a stop at Elenda and Arizona Avenues in Culver City.  

Lasky was ordered by the officers at scene to get out of his car, but he refused.  After many verbal attempts to order him out of the car, a plan was formulated to remove Lasky from the vehicle. The officers broke out the suspect’s driver and front passenger side windows and again demanded him to come out.  Now with the windows broken, he continued to ignore the officers’ demands and remained inside the car. Police Officer Osmani Baeza, 9-years, 2-months, experience with the LAPD and Officer Efrem Hunter, 2-years, 4-months with the Los Angeles Police Department and Officer Brittany Borja, 10-months with the Department, deployed TASERs multiple times.  Police Officer Walter Leiva, 8-years, 11-months with the LAPD, shot suspect Lasky twice with a non-lethal bean bag shotgun.Throughout the struggle,Lasky encouraged his full grown pit bull mix dog to attack the officers.  

A rescue ambulance from the Culver City Fire Department transported Lasky to a local hospital to treat injuries sustained during the incident. After the medical examinations Lasky was admitted for orbital fractures and two broken ribs. Lasky was absentee booked for Assault with a Deadly Weapon (ADW) with a Vehicle on a Police Officer.  West Traffic Division detectives are handling the ADW investigation and personnel from LAPD’s Force Investigation Division will conduct the investigation into the Law Enforcement Related Injury.