The fatal shooting of a machete-wielding man who allegedly attacked Honolulu police officers in a North School Street parking lot Aug. 11 was the fifth shooting by an officer this year, surpassing the entire number of incidents from 2020 as the public pushes police to be more transparent any time an officer fires a weapon at a suspect.

Officers have shot at suspects five times this year, compared with four situations in 2020. It is difficult to attribute any change in the number of shootings to particular sets of circumstances, acting Honolulu Police Chief Rade K. Vanic told the Honolulu Star- Advertiser.

“In some years they can be very low, but in the very next year they are very high. … It really is very hard to predict,” Vanic said.

Vanic talked about shootings by police the day after an Oahu District Court judge dropped murder and attempted murder charges against three officers in connection with the April 5 death of 16-year old Iremamber Sykap, driver of a stolen car linked to a series of robberies at gunpoint.

Officers are never looking to use deadly force, but if there is a situation where innocent bystanders or police are in grave danger, officers will do their job and protect the public, Vanic said.

“Our officers are well trained. They are faced with split-second decisions,” Vanic told the Star-Advertiser. “The last thing I want as a police chief is to see one of our officers hesitate in doing their job because they are worried what the consequences will be as a result of doing their job.”

While not the only possible factor for the increase, Vanic pointed to escalating attacks on law enforcement officers since 2015, including instances that resulted in bodily injury.

Five years ago that number was relatively low, but in more recent years that number has increased, he said. In 2015 there were 84 HPD officers who were injured following an assault by suspects. That number fell to 32 in 2016 before jumping to 100 in 2007. In 2018, 118 officers were attacked and injured, and 108 were hurt in 2019.

“What that shows is people are more likely to use force against police officers resulting in injury to officers,” he said. “Our officers are trained to respond to the level of resistance that they see. They react to the behavior that is presented to them.”

From 2015 to 2019 HPD officers used force in fewer than 1% of all incidents resulting in a police report, Vanic told the Honolulu Police Commission during a presentation Feb. 6. More than 72% of use-of-force incidents resulted in no injuries to the suspect. People who received injuries, as diagnosed by a medical professional, remained at about 21% from 2015 to 2019.

HPD enacted a new use-of-force policy April 1 that focuses on deescalation and omits previously used tactics that risked severe injury to suspects.

Three of the shootings by police this year were fatal, including the Aug. 11 machete incident in the early morning that left Elia S. Laeli dead after he allegedly cut off another man’s pinkie finger before attacking officers responding to the scene.

Vanic was asked about shootings by police during the Police Commission meeting Wednesday.

Commissioners were briefed on the Aug. 11 incident, and asked whether the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney is investigating. Vanic did not know the status of the prosecutor’s probe into the latest police shooting, but promised to update commissioners with as much information as he could at their next meeting.

He said HPD shares information with the prosecuting attorney about each case as prosecutors ask for it.

“Given the year we are in, I think it’s great for the department to always be able to say, ‘Here is what we think happened, and it’s going to the prosecutors,’” said commissioner Doug Chin. “That kind of assurance will show transparency and show the department is being willing to be held accountable.”

Vanic told commissioners the department is finalizing a policy and a process to release all body-worn camera footage. The policy will be reviewed by the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers and other stakeholders before it is formally enacted. Vanic pledged to hold a news conference withing 24 hours of each shooting by police and did so in the Laeli case, the first opportunity he had.

“While I’m in charge, moving forward, all body-worn camera footage will be released,” Vanic told commissioners. “However, it won’t be released until a time when it’s appropriate and it won’t have an impact on the outcome of whether the prosecutors accept the case or not. Once the determination is made, all body-worn camera footage will be released.”

POLICE SHOOTINGS

The number of office-involved shootings through Aug. 19, including fatal cases, since 2015:

YEAR SHOOTINGS FATALITIES

2021 5 3

2020 4 2

2019 9 5

2018 11 6

2017 2 2

2016 3 1

2015 2 0

Source: Honolulu Police Department