LOS ANGELES — The police shot and killed an unarmed black man in South Los Angeles on Monday night, the Los Angeles Police Department said. The police said that the man, whom the department did not identify, had tackled an officer and lunged for the weapon in his holster before being shot at by both the officer and his partner.

Family members told a local television station on Tuesday that the man was Ezell Ford, a 24-year-old whose “mental problems” they said were well known to the police. Cmdr. Andrew Smith, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, said that while he knew that the man had some kind of arrest record, it was unclear what the arrests had been for or whether the police had any evidence of mental illness.

According to the police, the man was shot around 8:20 p.m. after a struggle during an investigative stop. After the two officers approached him, Commander Smith said, the man “spun around, tucked his head toward the officer’s gun and basically tackled him to the ground, trying to grab at the weapon.” The partner shot at the man while the lead officer relied on his “backup weapon” to shoot, he added. The man was taken to a hospital but died from his injuries.

A woman who identified herself to the television station, KTLA, as Tritobia Ford, the victim’s mother, said that her son had been lying on the ground and complying with the officer’s commands when he was shot three times.