City of Honolulu cancels plan to pay grieving widow of unarmed black man murdered by police $1.5 million settlement after 40 armed officers show up at protest

Honolulu City Council has decided not to pursue a $1.5 million wrongful death lawsuit settlement over the 2021 police killing of a former South African rugby star, after strong opposition from law enforcement and city officials . The civil case will now go to court.

The settlement was approved by town attorney and the council’s legal committee after three years of mediation and negotiations with lawyers representing the widow of Lindani Myeni, an unarmed black man who was shot 4 times during a temporary and violent encounter with Honolulu police responding to a call. a 911 call regarding an alleged burglary attempt.

However, town council unexpectedly delayed a vote to approve the settlement last month after greater than 40 armed and uniformed officers, led by the police chief, showed up in council chambers in protest while Myeni’s widow, Lindsay Myeni, other residents and city leaders expressed emotional testimony for and against the settlement.

City Council President Tommy Waters then canceled last week’s scheduled full council vote on the settlement, saying the matter ought to be decided in court, Hawaii News Now reported.

Waters said discussion of the case at the October board meeting “devolved into what resembled a heated civil trial, with speakers presenting impassioned arguments and facts from both sides. It is clear that the legal framework and procedural safeguards of the judicial system are best placed to deal with this case.”

Honolulu prosecutor Steve Alm, who previously declined to charge the officers and told council members last month that police acted in self-defense once they shot Myeni, in an announcement expressed satisfaction that the plea vote was rejected.

“The resolution of this case would also mean that the officers involved were motivated by racial prejudice,” he said. “There was no evidence of this.”

Bridget Morgan-Bickerton, a lawyer representing the Myeni family, called the overwhelming police presence at the October city council meeting a “bullying and intimidation” tactic intended to influence the council to change its decision on the settlement. Civilbeat reported.

“And it is clear that it did,” Myeni’s attorney Jim Bickerton told Atlanta Black Star, noting that in September the council’s legal committee voted 8-1 to approve the settlement “after a detailed presentation of the facts by their own attorneys in a confidential meeting.” No latest facts have emerged. The only latest thing was the police showing up and making it clear how outraged they were that they couldn’t freely kill an unarmed black man.”

The wrongful death lawsuit alleged that the officers engaged in rash, unreasonable use of deadly force and that their actions were motivated by racial animosity toward Myeni, who’s Black.

Before the meeting, Myeni entered a multifamily Airbnb property and was told to leave by two residents of one of the properties. Myeni can have confused the property with a similar-looking temple round the corner or one other historic constructing, Bickerton said, noting that Myeni had a penchant for visiting historic sites in Hawaii.

The doorbell video shows Myeni casually taking off her shoes before entering the constructing while wearing a conventional Zulu headdress. Conversations between people inside are muffled. After leaving, Myeni said, “Sorry,” and quickly placed on his shoes.

In any event, Myeni left peacefully when asked to achieve this, the suit claims.

Dash camera and body-worn video of the incident show officers arriving as Myeni stood within the driveway and a lady who was a guest at the property shouted: “It’s him! It’s him!”

The lawsuit states that since it was a dark, moonless night and the property was poorly lit, and the officers counting on the element of surprise didn’t use sirens or announce themselves as police officers, they then aimed blindingly vibrant Maglites at his face and ordered him to come down, Myeni probably mistook them for robbers.

“Who are you? Who are you?” Myeni’s words might be heard at the start of the meeting within the bodycam footage.

His subsequent actions – lunging, grappling and punching officers, who burned and shot him – were self-defense, his attorneys argued, noting that between the primary time he punched Myeni and the officer who shot him the primary time.

“That’s an impossibly short time for any officer to assess that Lindani posed a significant risk of serious bodily injury,” Bickerton said, adding that Myeni was unarmed and standing about eight feet from Cpl. Garrick Orosco when Orosco shot Myeni within the stomach.

“And from that point on, as you know, we have maintained that because this was an unlawful use of force against an unarmed person, Lindani was justified in using deadly force in defense. You don’t shoot someone just because he knocked out two officers. You can attack him. You can beat him. You can use pepper spray. You can put three guys on him, but you don’t shoot him. So yes, after this Lindani is now fighting for her life. He realizes, “These guys are going to kill me.” I’m going to die tonight. He had every right to fight as hard as he could.

In court documents, Officer Brent Sylvester said he fired the ultimate three-shot salvo that killed Myeni because he feared for Orosco’s life, who Myeni was lying on top of at the time and punched him within the face. Orosco suffered serious facial fractures and still has not returned to work.

Bickerton said police and the district attorney “created a false narrative” about conditions at the scene and the sequence of events that led Myeni to attack the officers.

“The bottom line is, until he got shot, he didn’t punch anyone in the face or break anyone’s bones,” Bickerton said. “So he got into an argument, in his opinion, with people he couldn’t identify because his lights blinded him and they didn’t tell him who he was.”

Bickerton claims the officers’ “aggressive and disrespectful” behavior towards Myeni was based on racial animosity. “It was very contrary to the way our officers usually conduct themselves with the word ‘Aloha.’ Knowing the culture as well as I do, if it had been a Japanese, Hawaiian, or Caucasian man, Officer Orosco would not have addressed him that way. There was no “Sir, this is the police, show your hands.” It was, “Get on the ground!” And “F-you,” after which just saying, “Shoot him.”

Giving evidence at the City Council hearing, prosecutor Alm disputed the plaintiffs’ claims that Myeni didn’t know his attackers were police officers.

“I don’t see the police doing anything wrong,” he said. “I was told they were being criticized for not saying, ‘Police, police.’ They are wearing uniforms that everyone can see,” he said.

Bickerton, frustrated that the district attorney was “meddling in a civil matter,” responded last week: by publishing video from a police body camera showing Cpl. Orosco repeatedly said within the moments after the fatal shooting that he “didn’t see” the suspect.

If police officers cannot see well, which means Myeni cannot either, Bickerton said, adding that police have a legal obligation to report on themselves and their goal in such unclear circumstances.

The lawsuit seeks damages and compensation for Lindsay Myeni and her two children, who’re currently 3 and 5 years old. Her lawyers initially asked for $5 million at the beginning of the settlement process, then agreed to accept $1.5 million after lengthy negotiations with town, managed by a former judge and mediator.

Now that the settlement has been invalidated, Bickerton said: “It is for the jurisdiction to decide whether to award damages and, if so, how much. However, in proposing this award, I am certainly guided by the many large awards I have seen across the country. Because this is the only way to reduce the risk to everyone’s safety from a police force that feels irresponsible and can simply wield weapons willy-nilly. An award of significant damages would discourage this type of conduct, so we will certainly ask for it.”

There will probably be a hearing Thursday to set a trial date, which is able to likely happen inside a number of weeks within the second half of next 12 months, Bickerton said.