It happened on Saturday around 5 a.m. on Santa Rosalia Drive near Coliseum Street in South Los Angeles.
Family and friends said that 30-year-old Kamesha Davidson is well known to the LAPD because of her illness, and that she usually deals with the Mental Evaluation Unit.
Davidson's mother called authorities because she had stopped taking her medication, and was allegedly threatening to hurt a 3-year-old.
Authorities say the officers went into the apartment to see what was going on. They say when Davidson came out of her bedroom she struggled with officers, grabbing one officer in the groin and biting another.
"The subject then grabbed an item that the officer believed to be a stick with some sort of nails protruding from it," said Lt. Andy Neiman. "At that point an officer-involved shooting occurred."
"The officer told her to get up and she got up," said family friend Cynthia Castellano. "He told her to come here, and she was in the hallway, and he shot her. He shot her."
Davidson was shot once in the stomach by the LAPD. She was taken to a local hospital and is in stable condition.
Her family says they do not understand why the officers used lethal force on someone that they knew was mentally ill. They are also very angry that she was put in handcuffs before being taken to the hospital.
The LAPD says that is standard procedure if a suspect is agitated at the time.
It is unclear how many officers fired. An investigation is under way to determine what led to the officer-involved shooting.
