6/14/2023 0 Comments I remember sykapThe footage also shows Myeni said “sorry” as he left the home. A Ring video – obtained through a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Myeni’s widow, Lindsay, and released in June – showed Myeni entering the rental, which Lindsay has said she thinks her husband believed was a Hare Krishna temple on the same block. ![]() On 14 April, Honolulu police fatally shot Myeni after being called out to a rental property. Young Iremamber Sykap fishing in Hawaii with his grandmother in 2012. The charges mark the first time a Honolulu officer has been prosecuted in a police shooting since 1979 and if convicted, all three officers would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Thom has since been charged with one count of murder in the second degree, while two other officers involved in the killing were charged with one count of attempted murder in the second degree. Thom shot and hit the teen eight times – in the back of his head, neck, and back, and in his left arm. Police said the car Sykap was driving had been linked to other crimes and that they saw a firearm, but video described in court documents from the city’s prosecuting attorney later revealed it was only a cellphone.Īccording to the court documents, officer Geoffrey Thom, 42, started firing his gun “without provocation” into Sykap’s car while it was stationary. On 5 April, Iremamber Sykap, 16, was shot and killed by Honolulu police after a car chase. “We really like to say it’s a racial paradise and it’s a mixing pot,” she adds, saying this means discrimination can get swept under the rug because people are reluctant to face it. “I think it’s a lot harder to call out racism here because of the history of Hawaii,” says Nikkya Taliaferro, a 17-year-old activist and the former executive director of the youth-led advocacy group Hawaii for Black Lives. Last year, investigations by local news outlets showed that Honolulu police officers disproportionately arrested and used force against Black people and Pacific Islanders. Because of this, many people of color experience less discrimination and racism in Hawaii than on the mainland, but it is not a paradise for everyone. Immigrants from a broad swathe of places – including China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Portugal – have found their way to Hawaii over the last 200 years, making it one of the most diverse states in the US. ![]() He also noted that it took a federal investigation to reveal that the former Honolulu police chief, Louis Kealoha, and his wife, Katherine Kealoha, who was a deputy prosecuting attorney, had committed crimes including framing her uncle and stealing money from her grandmother. This is in part due to Hawaii’s history of being traditionally trusting of law enforcement, said Lawson, who is Black, noting that “people here are willing to give the police the benefit of the doubt,” despite a lack of transparency that is consistent with many mainland police departments. Lindani Myeni on a beach in Hawaii with his wife and two children. ![]() Kenneth Lawson, a civil rights academic at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa law school, said if the shootings had happened on the mainland, there would have been a greater backlash. The responses to Myeni and Sykap’s deaths have not been entirely muted there have been protests calling for justice and police reform, but also counter rallies in support of the Honolulu police department. The reaction to police killings on Oʻahu may differ from the mainland because of the diverse racial demographics on the island and within the police force itself, some say, while others point out that Hawaii’s vision of itself as a multicultural paradise has made it harder for those who experience discrimination and racism to speak out. Local civil rights advocates say the reasons behind this are complex and multifaceted. Yet the deaths have struggled to break through into the national conversation, and, while attention has grown as new information emerges, the deaths have failed to prompt the widespread outcry in Hawaii that has turned other victims on the mainland into household names. ![]() While there were no witness videos of the killings, the cases involved unarmed people of color, and saw police initially release misleading statements about the circumstances.
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