The police officers who fatally shot an unarmed, 29-year-old Black man who attacked them were justified in using deadly force and will not face criminal charges, Prosecuting Attorney Steven Alm announced Wednesday.
“The use of deadly force which resulted in Lindani Myeni’s death was justified,” said Alm, speaking to reporters for more than an hour Wednesday at the Prosecuting Attorney’s Richards Street headquarters. “We didn’t find any evidence that race played a role in this case.”
Alm said it was a tragedy. “A young man was killed. A family member was killed. This is serious stuff. It also ended with police officers having to kill somebody. And they will have to live with that for the rest of their lives.”
The death of Lindani Sanele Myeni, a citizen of South Africa, on April 14 was the second fatal shooting by Honolulu police officers in a nine-day stretch. It thrust the Honolulu Police Department further into the national debate over when it is justified to kill a suspect and what role race plays in police shootings.
Community advocates, South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States and the Rev. Al Sharpton decried Myeni’s death and called for answers and justice for his family.
Nine days before Myeni’s death, another trio of officers shot into the back and side of a stolen car driven by 16-year-old Iremamber Sykap, an unarmed Micronesian, killing him as the white Honda Civic he was driving idled on Kalakaua Avenue. An Oahu Grand jury declined to indict those officers, but Alm charged the officers by filing criminal complaints.
Megan K. Kau, an attorney who ran for Prosecuting Attorney, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser she was glad to hear Alm say race played no role in Myeni’s death, and said the officers followed the law, their training, and did what they needed to do to avoid grave injury, bodily harm or death.
“While this is a positive moment for HPD, I think the blow of going against the grand jury and charging the three officers (in the Sykap case) is so unheard of and unprecedented that even this won’t wipe away the fact that the government went behind the grand jury’s back in the Sykap case. To people who believe that police officers shouldn’t shoot someone who is unarmed, the law is clear. If an officer is faced with the threat of grave bodily injury, harm or death, or the threat there of, the officer can use deadly force. If people disagree with that they have to go the Legislature and change the law,” Kau said. “When you are dealing with someone who is that violent you can’t send in a social worker or doctor, that person would face bodily injury or death themselves.”
Kenneth L. Lawson, a professor at the William S. Richardson School of Law, said he was troubled with Alm’s assertion that the shooting was justified. A criminal case was going to be tough to make in a case where police open fire in defense of their fellow officers but he does believe civil liability exists because the officers did not identify themselves verbally until after they shot Myeni four times.
Alm “took a lot of heat for charging the other officers (in the Sykap case)” and Wednesday’s decision not to charge the officers in the Myeni shooting while labeling their actions justified is a signal that he is being fair to the officers and the department he relies on to make cases, Lawson said.
“It’s a hard case to make criminally because the two officers who shot are trying to defend another officer. The issue is, did he know the person coming at him was a police officer?” Lawson said. “He (Myeni) wasn’t being violent prior to that (being ordered to the ground with a gun pointed at him). I think there maybe some civil liability, negligence, in the whole thing. Can we improve? Is there anything we could have done better to avoid shooting an unarmed person? You are supposed to at least announce you are a police officer.”
Interim HPD Chief Rade K. Vanic, who is out of the office until July 19, and acting Chief Ryan Nishibun declined to answer written questions emailed to them about the incident.
HPD declined to release any evidence in the case when requested by the Star-Advertiser through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Vanic did release a statement.
“When we take our oath, we know that our work will put us in serious, dangerous and potentially deadly situations. We go to great lengths to protect our community, but the tragic reality is that, in rare cases, incidents may end in the loss of a life,” said Vanic in the statement. “We are thankful that two of our officers were able to return to work, and we continue to support our third officer as he recovers from his injuries. We also thank the community for its ongoing support of HPD.”
State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers President Malcolm Lutu issued a statement shortly after Alm’s announcement.
“No officer wants to use deadly force when doing their job to protect our communities. This was an unfortunate tragedy and we know that the healing process for all those involved will take time,” Lutu said in an email.
On April 14, Myeni left his home between 7:15 and 7:30 p.m. to “clear his head” according to the investigation report produced by Alm’s office.
Myeni allegedly behaved oddly, interfered with a police investigation of a car break-in at Kewalo Basin, asked officers there for money to buy food, tried to enter one of their patrol cars and tooted his horn at them as he drove away. Myeni told his wife Lindsay at 7:52 p.m. that he was on his way home.
One of the officers at Kewalo Basin commented that the 2015 four-door Mazda 3 with Texas license plates that Myeni was driving did not have its lights on and speculated that Myeni was “on something” according to the report. A preliminary toxicology report revealed cannabis components in Myeni’s blood but did not determine if he was impaired the night he was killed.
Myeni approached an officer who was parked near the alleged car break-in and got so close the officer told him to back up, stay 6 feet away, and put a mask on to comply with COVID-19 emergency orders.
Myeni, a former rugby player, took kickboxing classes in Kailua and said he was not afraid of the police, according to the report.
About 30 minutes after his interactions with officers by the beach, Myeni drove straight to the home in Nuuanu and followed Shiying “Sabine” Wang, her husband Da Ju “Dexter” Wang as they drove into the driveway of the home they were renting a room in.
Myeni was tailgating them, according to Alm, and Sabine Wang called 911 and alleged that Myeni walked into her home and wandered around for about five minutes, telling her and her husband that he had video of them, that he lived there and owned the cat, according to the report.
Wang’s 911 call generated a burglary complaint, and three patrol officers responded to it. Before she called 911, she pretended to call 911 and repeatedly asked Myeni to leave. She produced her phone and showed it to Myeni, according to the report.
“Tell them I’m from South Africa. I’m on a hunt. I’m on a safari,” Myeni said as he lowered a feathered headband he was wearing. “We’re hunting, there is no time.” Sabine Wang, a freelance web application developer, and her husband, a Facebook artificial intelligence engineer, believed Myeni meant they were the prey.
In the body-worn camera footage, Myeni attacks an officer who had pointed a gun at Myeni and ordered him to the ground, with a flurry of punches, causing facial fractures and a concussion, according to the report. Myeni shouts, “who are you” but police do not verbally identify themselves until after he was shot four times. Police and prosecutors maintain that the officers’ uniforms, patrol cars and intentions were clear.
Myeni was handcuffed after he was shot and rolled onto his back before officers performed CPR and used a defibrillator. He was awake and “identified himself to officers and uttered that he was married with two children,” prosecutors said.
Myeni’s widow filed a lawsuit against HPD, and her attorney, James J. Bickerton, filed a motion Wednesday to confirm that patrol officer Brent Sylvester fired three shots at Myeni, hitting his left chest, right shoulder and right thigh. Officer Garrick Orosco fired a single shot into Myeni’s right chest, according to the report.
Bickerton said the civil case is not affected by Alm’s decision not to pursue criminal charges.
Officer-Involved Shooting Report No. 2021-02 by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd
PowerPoint for Officer-Involved Shooting Report No. 2021-02 by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd
