Two camera videos carried on the body today show a violent fight between 29-year-old Lindani Myeni and the police officers in Honolulu, who shot Myeni dead outside a house in Nuuanu on Wednesday night during a suspected burglary.
One video is 32 seconds long, while the other is 55 seconds. The body camera of a third officer was not activated.
Officers came to the scene of a report of burglary after a woman shouted at a man who was allegedly just inside her home.
A police officer orders the suspect to get on the ground several times, but he does not comply. The suspect is seen walking towards the officer and attacking him; a second officer arrives and deploys his Taser.
Police said the Taser did not stop the suspect, who then attacked the officer who fired his Taser. An officer fires one shot.
The dark footage shows the suspect attacking an officer who was on the ground before a third officer fired his gun three times at Myeni.
Myeni was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Three officers were injured, including one who suffered facial fractures and remained in hospital today.
Acting Deputy Chief of Staff Allan Nagata told a news conference at HPD headquarters to release the video, saying officers were “fighting for their lives.”
‘They were in the fight for their lives – let me highlight this with you. … They did very well. “They were very brave,” he said. “They did not immediately shoot or fire the firearm. This was not a case of overreaction. ”
Nagata admitted that the officers never identified themselves as police in the moments before the assault and shooting, but he said their uniforms, instructions and police cars make it clear who they are.
Ken Lawson, a professor at the University of Hawaii, William S. Richardson School of Law, interpreted the footage differently, calling it a “rush to the judgment” of a black man.
He said officers should have investigated the emergency call instead of immediately treating the scene as a hostile person, even if they were to arrive screaming at a woman.
‘Does the man threaten the police when they get there, when they get there? Is he threatening anyone? “He’s the one standing there – she’s crazy,” Lawson said. ‘The officer must look and observe. … He stands there, he does not have a weapon, and he does not threaten them. … What the officer does is he pulls out his weapon, points it at the man and tells him to climb into a lying position in the rain. For what?”
The released footage reveals no dialogue between Myeni and any of the police officers.
Lawson said he had seen the increase in violence many times when police were dealing with black people.
“The reason I’m skeptical is because we’re always seen people call the police to black people, and these were fake calls,” he said. ‘But the reason they can do that is because they know when they say it’s a big black man attacking me here, that the police will react exactly as HPD (Wednesday) reacted. It’s dangerous. ”
Lawson did not defend Myeni’s reactions, but he said it should not have ended in his death.
‘It should not have ended in death if the person is unarmed and there are three of you and one of him. I just do not understand it, “he said.