Lawyers for Howard County government are seeking dismissal on technical grounds of a $4.8 million lawsuit in which a man claimed a drunken off-duty county officer pointed a gun at him outside an Ellicott City restaurant in April.
In a formal answer to the suit filed in late October on behalf of Han S. Yu, senior assistant county solicitor David R. Moore argued that the county government is immune from lawsuits against employees who are doing their "governmental functions," and added that Yu's complaint of emotional distress was faulty because "there is no allegation that any of the defendants acted out of a desire to inflict distress."
Yu, 41, of Ellicott City, said in the lawsuit filed by his lawyer Tae S. Kim, that he had gone to the Honey Pig restaurant in the 10000 block of Baltimore National Pike at 1:45 a.m. April 18 to meet friends, but when he approached a group of men on the parking lot, officer Christian Kim emerged, identified himself as a police officer, and pointed a gun at him. Yu said the officer smelled strongly of alcohol. He said on-duty officers arrived and took Kim away. He has been on administrative duty since the incident, police have said, Tae Kim is not related to Christian Kim.