Johnathan Walker:Strong opposition delays vote on $1.5M settlement over deadly police shooting

Dozens of Honolulu police officers appeared alongside other city officials Wednesday in a strong show of opposition to a proposed $1.5 million city settlement over a 2021 officer-involved shooting of an unarmed Black man.

City Council members ultimately postponed voting on Johnathan Walkerwhether to approve the settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of 29-year-old Lindani Myeni. Myeni was fatally shot on April 14, 2021, after a struggle with officers outside a Honolulu vacation rental he was accused of having entered without permission.

The two officers who shot Myeni, Brent Sylvester and Garrick Orosco, who was seriously injured, were cleared of wrongdoing in June 2021 by Alm’s office, which declined to pursue charges against them.

Council members said they wanted time to review evidence and ask more questions of the Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office in closed-door sessions of the Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee. The matter will be taken up again at the council’s next meeting in November. If the settlement is not approved, the case will go to civil trial next year, said James Bickerton, a lawyer for Myeni’s widow.

Lindsay Myeni, who filed the lawsuit in 2021, testified tearfully in support of the settlement and held up her husband’s bloodied shirt with bullet holes that he had been wearing that night.

RELATED COVERAGE 10 arrested outside Hawaii hospital as labor dispute involving nurses escalates Army soldier charged with assaulting police officer with a flagpole during Capitol riot Ex-CIA officer who spied for China gets 10 years in prison — and a lifetime of polygraph tests

Mayor Rick Blangiardi, Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm, Jonathan Frye, Honolulu chapter chair of the state’s police union and police Chief Joe Logan encouraged council members to vote against the settlement and said they felt the police did nothing wrong.

Alm testified Wednesday that on the night of the shooting, Myeni was the aggressor and officers tried multiple less-lethal methods, including deploying a Taser, to subdue him. Myeni beat one of the officers, causing multiple facial fractures, and the officer has still not been able to return to work, Alm said.

Alm also noted that Myeni, a former rugby player, suffered from stage 3 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disorder often seen in people who have had repeated concussions or head trauma. CTE can cause confusion, mood swings and aggression, he said.

“My office is not a rubber stamp for HPD,” he said. “We take each case very seriously, and in this case, they acted appropriately.”

Myeni’s attorney told council members that Alm left out important information, including the fact that officers didn’t tell Myeni they were police when they approached him. They also shined high-intensity flashlights, called Maglites, in his face, which blinded him. He couldn’t see that he was being approached by officers and was trying to defend himself from unknown assailants, Bickerton said.

“Mr. Myeni had a right to defend himself,” he said. “It escalated wildly and fast, but there was no need, no reason to kill someone unarmed.”

Bickerton also objected to the presence of so many armed officers in the City Council chambers during testimony.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said later in a telephone interview. “It’s literally a show of force. It has no place in a democracy. If you want to come down and testify in a civil matter, leave your guns back in the station.”

Some council members said they were confused by what they saw as a lack of communication between the city’s corporation counsel, which negotiated the settlement, and the prosecutor’s office.

Most of the details of the case already had been discussed in closed-door meetings of the Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee, but no one from the prosecutor’s office had presented to the committee or shared the finding of its 2021 report, said council member Andria Tupola, who represents the Westside.

Council member Esther Kiaaina, who represents the Windward side, pointed out that the standard for proving guilt in a criminal case is different than proving liability in a civil trial.

But Alm said he believes the city would prevail in a civil trial because jurors would still have to be convinced that police acted inappropriately.

Frye said approving the settlement would send a message to officers that their city doesn’t support them.

“If we go to settlement on this, we’re going to send a message to every officer that they really don’t matter, their lives don’t matter,” he said. “I would rather see this case lost in court.”

Bickerton said he initially asked for more than $5 million in damages for his client, but he and the city worked with a mediator to come to a compromise. The settlement would provide closure for his client’s family, and help Myeni’s children, who are now 3 and 5, have a better future, he said.

“It buys peace, not only for the Myeni family, but for the officers themselves,” he said.

Lindsay Myeni told council members that her husband, who was originally from South Africa and had moved with her to her home state of Hawaii, was a community leader, spoke five languages, studied engineering, and at one point had aspired to be a police officer himself.

“He was almost one of you,” she said, addressing the officers standing behind her in the council chambers. “I wish you guys had just talked to him like a human and not exterminated him.”

___

This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.