Honolulu police officer who fatally shot Lindani Myeni faced drunk-driving, other charges in 2016

The Honolulu police officer who shot 29-year-old Lindani Myeni three times before activating his body-worn camera was arrested and charged with operating a vehicle under the influence of an intoxicant and fleeing the scene of an accident in 2016, charges that were later dismissed when witnesses did not show up in court to testify against him.

Patrol officer Brent K. Sylvester, then a 13-year department veteran, was facing up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine for the hit-and-run, and a jail term of between two and five days, a fine of up to $1,000 and a one-year license revocation for drunken driving.

He allegedly rear-ended a car on the H-1 freeway at 2 a.m. and left while the occupants of the car he hit followed him to his home where they told police they found him drunk and slurring his words. Sylvester told responding officers he had only “a few” before they arrested him, according to court records.

His driver’s license was revoked for two years because he refused to submit to an alcohol test. Sylvester worked in the department’s Traffic Division at the time.

The charges were thrown out because the prosecutor could not get witnesses to testify against Sylvester in court, according to Honolulu Star-Advertiser coverage of the 2016 case.

On April 14, Officer Garrick Orosco fired a single shot into Myeni’s right chest, and is seen in body-worn camera footage following the shooting at 91 Coelho Way in Nuuanu telling fellow officers “F—-, I couldn’t see, brah. … I couldn’t even see him, brah. … I couldn’t see where he was.”

A uniformed, female officer, who recognizes Orosco, is seen, wearing a white face mask, takes out a notebook and asks him, “How did the case happen?”

“F—-, I forget already,” he responds in the footage. He is later asked again for his account and turns off his body-worn camera before answering.

HPD’s Professional Standards Office’s investigation into whether the three officers violated department policies during the incident is ongoing. Sylvester’s shots struck Myeni in his left chest, right shoulder and right thigh. Orosco fired a single shot into Myeni’s right chest, according to the report. Neither officer had ever used deadly force before.

Myeni died April 14 following a bloody fistfight with officers who tried to subdue him with nonlethal means repeatedly before finally shooting him. Police received a 911 call from a New Jersey woman who was renting a room in the home and said Myeni followed her and her husband home and wandered around the house for more than five minutes.

The revelations Thursday about the officers who shot and killed the unarmed, married father of two from South Africa came on the same day the Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network denounced Prosecuting Attorney Steven S. Alm’s decision Wednesday not to seek criminal charges against the officers for the shooting. Sharpton called for an Oahu grand jury to consider criminal charges against Sylvester, Orosoco and a third officer HPD declined to identify.

“Video of his killing shows that Honolulu police confronted Myeni in the dark of night,” Sharpton told the Honolulu Star- Advertiser in a statement. “One holds a 600-lumen flashlight and gun drawn, shouting at Mr. Myeni, ‘Get on the ground!’ A struggle between him and that officer ensued in which that same officer shot Myeni in the chest. A second officer then fired three shots. Mr. Myeni, unarmed, died from these shots, asking the question, ‘Who are you?’

“The central point of this case is that black people have the same rights as all other people do, and the application of law should not be exceptional in their case.”

Interim Chief Rade K. Vanic, who is out of the office until July 19, and acting Chief Ryan Nishibun did not respond to questions emailed to them about the officers or Sharpton’s assertion that they should be brought before a grand jury. HPD did not respond to a Star-Advertiser request for unedited body-worn camera footage and any other evidence from the Myeni case.

The ACLU of Hawaii said Alm ignored the potential testimony of essential witnesses, and questions from news media revealed that investigators with the prosecutor’s office did not interview the officers involved, the woman who called 911 or her husband, or Lindsay Myeni, Lindani Myeni’s wife.

“The prosecutor was also seemingly unaware of the officer’s past disciplinary records, and hasn’t explained why one officer never activated his body worn camera,” said Joshua Wisch, executive director of the ACLU of Hawaii. “Considering these yawning gaps in critical information, it’s hard to understand how any investigation can be considered complete and how the conclusions announced yesterday could be considered credible.”

“The prosecutor ignored Mr. Myeni repeatedly asking the officers ‘who are you’ and asking ‘why,’ which belies any suggestion that Mr. Myeni knew they were police. The prosecutor ignored the fact that the first thing officers did when they showed up was point their guns and 600 lumen flashlights at Mr. Myeni — when he was visibly unarmed — and yell at him to get on the ground. The prosecutor ignored Mr. Myeni’s calm, peaceful demeanor on the home video camera and that Mr. Myeni apologized multiple times to the home’s residents.”

Attorney James J. Bickerton, who is representing Lindsay Myeni in a wrongful death lawsuit against the officers, the city and HPD, said Alm’s focus on the shooting ignored the first action of ordering an unarmed person to lie on the ground at gunpoint.

“That is ordinarily the crime of terroristic threatening, kidnapping, or reckless endangering, and it is only legal for a police officer to do this if (1) the target is aware that this is the lawful command of a police officer or (2) the police officer announces the police purpose,” Bickerton said.

“If the order from unidentified persons to get on the ground at gunpoint was unlawful, then Mr. Myeni was lawfully defending himself.”