Honolulu Police Department pledges more public transparency

In response to local and nationwide demand for police transparency and a sharp shift away from longstanding use-of-force practices, the Honolulu Police Department will hold news conferences within 24 hours of every officer-involved shooting and is amending its training for new recruits and veteran officers to emphasize de-escalation, cultural sensitivity, officer accountability and a near total ban on shooting into vehicles.

Interim Chief Rade K. Vanic presented the changes in response to questions from members of the City Council’s executive matters and legal affairs committee Tuesday, a day of major, emotional developments in the cases of two fatal officer-involved shootings that left police and community members shaken and anxious.

Less than an hour after Vanic’s presentation ended, Prosecuting Attorney Steven S. Alm announced murder and attempted murder charges against three officers in connection with the April 5 fatal shooting of 16-year-old Iremamber Sykap, who police chased from East Honolulu to town before confronting his stolen car on Kalakaua Avenue and firing into the vehicle from the sides and rear, without provocation, as it idled on that street, according to court documents.

The complaints filed in district court were the first time a police officer has been charged with a crime in connection with a police shooting in at least 45 years and came less than a week after an Oahu grand jury declined to indict.

“It’s good to know you folks are taking this stuff seriously and you are going to provide better training,” Council Chair Tommy Waters told Vanic during the meeting. “We just settled a case for a million dollars. We are authorized to settle a case where an officer shot into a car. Again. It’s good to hear you are instituting more major changes and one of them is not to shoot into the vehicle unless it’s being used as a weapon.”

Nine days after Sykap’s death, 29-year-old Lindani Myeni died of multiple gunshot wounds after a fight with police responding to a 911 caller who accused Myeni of walking into and then out of the Nuuanu home where she was staying. Surveillance camera footage, also released Tuesday by the Myeni family attorney, James J. Bickerton, seemed to validate the assertion that Myeni mistakenly entered and then apologetically left the home at 91 Coelho Way believing it to be a nonsectarian temple of worship located in a similarly designed structure at 51 Coelho Way.

The footage, which made national and international news programs and publications, showed Myeni entering the home, then apologizing and leaving; and a New Jersey woman, Shiying “Sabine” Wang, first faking a 911 call and then actually calling 911 to convey fearful descriptions of the encounter with the unarmed Myeni, a Black former rugby player from South Africa.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Waters asked Vanic about the Myeni case and why his predecessor, despite having the footage from the door camera, described Myeni as a burglary suspect who acted odd toward the homeowners.

“Your predecessor said this was a burglary but it clearly wasn’t. My concern is the Ring doorbell was in HPD’s possession … clearly it wasn’t a burglary. It was a huge mistake that went wrong. It looked as though he said sorry, he went to the house by accident,” Waters said.

Without commenting specifically on the April 14 shooting, Vanic provided a police perspective to responding to 911 calls for service. Officers are trained to react to the situation and behavior presented to them, he said, and often the information relayed to them by a dispatcher may not be what greets them when they arrive.

“I know a picture is worth a thousand words, but there are definitely things a camera does not show. You will see what the camera sees but other things to consider, when you are re-watching a video over and over again, you have the luxury of replaying or playing it in slow motion,” Vanic said. “When officers are at a scene and they are dealing with potentially life-or-death situations, they sometimes have only seconds to react. It’s like ‘do something, do something, you didn’t do something, you’re dead, you’re not fast.’ I know when I say it, it doesn’t seem like it, but place yourself in what I actually said and imagine when I said ‘you’re dead because you didn’t act.’ You’re dead. That’s not an excuse of why our officers do what they do but it’s an understanding of what they deal with sometimes.”

One of the three officers who fought with Myeni remains on injured leave and there is no timetable for his return to duty.

In response to those incidents, the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii demanded more police transparency, less violence and a renewed focus on eliminating racial disparities in policing and the application of force.

“From racial profiling, to stop-and-frisk, to over- policing communities of color, to racial disparities in use of force and arrests, implicit and explicit bias feed the systemic racism that has always and still exists in our police institutions, including here in Hawai‘i,” Joshua Wisch, executive director of the ACLU of Hawaii, told the Star-Advertiser in a statement. “We’re not immune to it. The killings of Iremamber Sykap and Lindani Myeni are the latest tragic examples of this.”

Addressing those racial disparities and enhancing the sensitivity of officers through the creation of community partnerships is a priority for Vanic, who highlighted HPD’s recent work with the Micronesian community. Over the last two months, Vanic and his two deputy chiefs have met with the Consulate General of the Federated States of Micronesia in Hawaii, Henry Shrew, and two other Micronesian community groups to create programs, promote the department to potential recruits from the community and develop training curriculum for new recruits and officers.

The HPD recruit class in August will be the first to include cultural sensitivity training specific to the Micronesian community.

“I learned something myself. We call them the Micronesian community, but there are actually different areas. For example, I’m Polynesian but I don’t necessarily identify as Polynesian. I identify as Hawaiian or part Hawaiian, and that’s the same thing with the Micronesian community,” Vanic said. “That’s something I didn’t know and would be helpful if our commanders knew.”

The new use-of-force policies were enacted April 1 and the department continues to change the curriculum at the Ke Kula Makai training academy for new metropolitan police recruits and in the mandatory annual training completed by every one of HPD’s 1,800 sworn officers.

The four major use-of-force changes are the prioritization of de-escalation tactics when encountering suspects, a ban on the use of the vascular neck restraint unless a situation requires deadly force, a ban on shooting into a vehicle unless the vehicle is being used in a mass casualty event or suspects inside are firing at officers, and a policy mandating that officers must intervene when they see a uniformed colleague breaking the law or HPD policy.

Videos highlighting the use-of-force policy changes are being produced and will be distributed departmentwide.

“We believe it is very important that they at least know what the four major changes are, and moving forward they are abiding by what those changes are,” Vanic said.