Judge dismisses charges against Honolulu officers who fatally shot teen
On Wednesday, a Hawaii judge declined to pursue charges against three Honolulu police officers involved in the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old Iremamber Sykap in April, preventing the case from going to trial. In a ruling from the bench, District Court Judge William Domingo said there was no probable cause to bring murder and attempted murder charges against the officers involved.
A grand jury previously decided not to indict the officers in the killing of Sykap, but state prosecutors sought their own charges, arguing that the officers’ use of deadly force was “unnecessary, unreasonable, and unjustified under the law.”
According to the Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steven S. Alm, on April 5 Sykap was shot eight times through the rear windshield of a white Honda that police suspected had been stolen and used in a recent series of crimes.
Honolulu’s chief medical examiner testified that Sykap was hit by eight shots, including one to the back of the head and a fatal wound in the upper back, which tore his aorta. Skykap died later after being taken to a hospital and his brother, Mark Sykap, was shot twice but survived the shooting.
Prosecutors charged Officer Geoffrey Thom with second-degree murder for reportedly firing the shots that killed Sykap “without provocation.” The prosecution said Thom fired 10 rounds at Sykap through the rear window of the car after it stopped at an intersection. Officers Zackary Ah Nee and Christopher Fredeluces, who also opened fire on the vehicle the brothers were in, faced second-degree attempted murder charges.
Judge Domingo refused to bring charges against the officers on the grounds that the officers had no way of knowing two teenagers were in the car they opened fire on.
“All we had was a white Honda speeding away, trying to avoid being arrested,” Domingo said at the end of the weeks-long preliminary hearing.
“If there was no pursuit in the beginning, and there were just people in the car and officers just came up and started shooting from behind without any type of provocation—but that’s not what we have here,” Domingo said.
Police claimed the three officers fired at Sykap after he weaved in and out of traffic at speeds up to 80 miles per hour as he led police on a high-speed chase. The vehicle came to a stop at an intersection after being surrounded by police cars. Officers surrounded the car with their weapons drawn and ordered the occupants to exit the vehicle.
“The reasonable person would think, well, you know, is it over? And it’s not over at that point,” Domingo said. Officers said the car started moving again, putting officers and others in danger, and that’s when Thom opened fire into the white Honda.
A police evidence specialist testified officers found a pellet gun that looked like a real firearm in the Honda Sykap was driving. Police said they also found a magazine of real ammunition and one that was empty. However, no real firearms were found in the car. Police also claimed they found a backpack several blocks away from the shooting that came from a suspect who fled the vehicle. The backpack only had a blank-firing revolver, similar to those used as movie props or at track-and-field events.
Thomas Otake, the attorney who represents Ah Nee, told CNN that he was not surprised by the grand jury and the court’s decisions.
“This was clearly a case of officers acting to protect themselves and the public. It was not even a close call,” Otake said in an emailed statement.
Thom’s attorney, Richard Sing, agreed with Otake.
“The rejection of the prosecutors misguided accusations by both the grand jury and then by the courts, all within 2 months of each other, means that the charges were utterly without merit or cause,” Sing told CNN in a statement.
Fredeluces’ lawyer, Crystal K. Glendon, said that justice prevailed.
“Both attempts failed because they were without merit,” Glendon told CNN in an email. “A case that never should have been charged was resoundingly dismissed not once, but twice.”
Malcolm Lutu, the president of State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, said in a statement that the police union was pleased that the legal system ruled in favor of the officers for a second time.
“Today isn’t a day of celebration, rather, it proves that the officers’ decision making was justified. It does not take away from the tragedy of what happened and the impact that it has on many families,” he said.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Christopher Van Marter countered claims that officers were in danger at the time of the shooting. Van Marter said body camera video, which has not been released to the public, contradicted the officers’ claims that Sykap attempted to use the car to ram them. Marter admitted Sykap was not complying with officers’ demands to exit the car but stated he did not pose a threat to the lives of the officers at any time, according to the criminal complaints filed against the officers.
Van Marter said Thom displayed a breakdown in judgement, restraint and discipline in that there was no reason for him “to start blasting 10 rounds into that car.”
“We’re talking about taking a person’s life with a gun. A government employee. He’s supposed to be disciplined, exercise restraint, only do something if necessary,” Van Marter said.
Since 2015, police in Hawaii have killed 36 people according to a database maintained by the Washington Post. Five people, including Sykap, have been killed so far this year.
Three Honolulu police officers shot and killed Lindani Myeni, a black South African rugby player, on April 14 after he entered a home he apparently mistook for a public temple. Body camera footage shows that the officers did not identify themselves until after they engaged Myeni in a struggle and shot him four times. Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Alm announced on June 30 that the officers would face no charges after determining the shooting was justified.
New Mexico state police note “significant increase” in police shootings
A July 19 report by Albuquerque news outlet KOB4 quoted New Mexico State Police (NMSP) Major Matt Broom as saying that there has been “a significant increase” in shootings by law enforcement in the state this year. According to the report, shootings by State Police, county sheriffs and local cops from January 1 to July 19 totaled 18 in 2019 and 20 in 2020.
For 2021, the number had jumped to 34 in the same timeframe. Of these, the NMSP is investigating 21, which break down to 11 people killed, eight injured and two escaped. One NMSP officer was killed.
Broom told the channel that the shootings “aren’t centralized to Albuquerque, they are not centralized to Las Cruces [the state’s second most populous city, with a metro figure of about 218,000], or any particular part of the state. There’s just been a significant increase.” He admitted at the same time, “We have not seen a significant increase in violent crime outside of officer-involved shootings.
“The largest increase has been with smaller police departments, concentrated in rural parts of the state,” according to the report. Broom said, “I really can’t tell what the driving force for that [is].”
Police shootings in 2021 have borne out Broom’s statement:
· In Santa Fe County, home of the eponymous state capital, there were four shootings from June 23 to July 7, three of them fatal, involving Santa Fe police, Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies and NMSP officers.
· Albuquerque Police Department officers shot a man in the chin after he stole a bait car (a decoy used to entrap car thieves) on July 6. Officers said that he had pulled a gun and shot at them. He was taken to the hospital and survived the wound.
· In Roswell, in southeastern New Mexico, two Chaves County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a man while responding to a domestic violence call on June 27. One deputy claimed, “As we approached him at gunpoint, he pulled something out of his pocket. He had a quick movement toward us,” and that they feared for their lives. They found a cell phone, but no weapon, by his body.
A lapel camera filmed the encounter. Sheriff Mike Herrington asserted after seeing the video, “I believe it will be a justifiable shooting. The deputies did exactly as they were trained to do.” However, civil rights attorney Laura Schauer Ives told KRQE, “It looked like an execution to me.”
· On July 16, Roswell Police Department officers, along with officers from multiple other agencies shot a man who they said shot at them. He fled but died from his wound. No officers were hurt.
· In Las Vegas, a city of about 14,000 in the state’s northeast, local police shot and killed a 30-year-old man who they said pointed a gun and shot at them. The NMSP is conducting an investigation.
As throughout the country, police violence has been a constant scourge in New Mexico year after year, including killings of political activists as well as the mentally ill and homeless people, in addition to those deemed “suspects.” New Mexico is tied with Alaska for the highest number of police killings per capita since 2015, according to the database of fatal police shootings maintained by the Washington Post. There were 129 recorded police killings in the state between January 13, 2015 and July 17 of this year, or more than 61 deaths for every one million residents. This averages out to one police killing approximately every six weeks.
Following the March 16, 2014 killing of mentally ill homeless man James Boyd by two APD officers in the Albuquerque foothills and protests against the long record of police violence, the federal Department of Justice (DoJ) under President Barack Obama intervened in an attempt to quell popular anger.
The DoJ issued a report that included the unsurprising statement that “we have reasonable cause to believe that APD engages in a pattern or practice of use of excessive force, including deadly force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment [the constitutional provision barring ‘unreasonable searches and seizures’]. … We have determined that structural and systemic deficiencies—including insufficient oversight, inadequate training, and ineffective policies—contribute to the use of unreasonable force.”
The WSWS commented on August 12, 2014:
The summary concludes that there is nothing “isolated or sporadic” about the APD’s use of excessive force, but rather that it “stems from systemic deficiencies in oversight, training, and policy,” primarily “failure to implement an objective and rigorous internal accountability system. Force incidents are not properly investigated, documented, or addressed with corrective measures.”
What followed the report was a “settlement agreement” with mostly cosmetic changes, a series of carefully controlled “ community meetings ” and the reshuffling of the Police Oversight Commission following the resignations of three of its members. In the following years, the APD increased its stockpile of weapons and obtained military vehicles courtesy of the Obama administration.
The trial of the two officers who murdered Boyd finally took place in October 2017. The special prosecutor lowered the charge to second-degree murder under the assumption that a conviction would be easier to obtain. The outcome of the trial was a hung jury, and the possibility of a retrial appears a closed book.
As has happened in other cities, the settlement agreement and the hoopla around it did not bring real changes to police violence in Albuquerque or anywhere else in New Mexico. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the crises of poverty, homelessness, health care, education, inequality and abuse of immigrants in New Mexico, one of the poorest states, and throughout the US. In the eyes of the ruling class, more, not less repression will have to be deployed against the working class as the capitalist crisis deepens.
Since the function of police forces is to “protect and serve” the interests of the ruling class, not of the working-class majority, bringing the epidemic of police violence to an end is not a matter of training or reform. It is up to the working class to rid the world of the source of police violence, capitalism, and replace it with socialism, the only progressive alternative.
Police draw weapons and detain African American realtor and family
A father, his teenage son and a realtor, all African American, were surrounded by police with guns drawn and handcuffed during a house showing on Sunday, August 1, in Wyoming, Michigan. The violent encounter is yet another exposure of the brutality of American capitalism.
When real estate agent Eric Brown arrived at the property on Sunday afternoon in a black vehicle, a neighbor reportedly mistook Brown for another person, an African American man with a black Mercedes who had been arrested at the same house for illegal entry a week before.
Police released audio of a phone call in which the neighbor reported that the “young black man,” who was previously detained for “squatting in a house that’s for sale,” was “back there again. The car’s sitting out front.”
The police also released audio from their radio channel. After their arrival on the scene, an officer relays, “I just got off the phone with the caller. It sounds like it’s going to be a B[reaking] and E[ntering] in progress, in an unoccupied dwelling. They’re currently inside the house.”
By this time, Roy Thorne and his son had arrived and were touring the house. In the audio from their radio, police noted “a black Chevy and ... Genesis,” neither of which matched the Mercedes from the call and the previous arrest.
As police arrived at around 2:25 p.m., they reported, “The front door is open.”
Police surrounded the house, demanded the three come out with their hands up and kept their weapons trained on them until they were all in handcuffs.
Brown had the presence of mind to point to his business cards, which identified him as a real estate agent. Within minutes, the three were released. In body camera video of the incident, an officer apologizes “for the confusion.”
For those few perilous minutes, any wrong move on the part of Brown, Thorne or his son could have resulted in their execution by the police.
In an interview with NBC News by the two men, Thorne called the experience “traumatizing,” and that “the damage is done.” Recalling guns pointed at him and his teenage son, Thorne continued, “In the current climate of things, you just really don’t know what’s going to happen.”
In the same interview, Eric Brown said he believes they were racially profiled. If it were white people showing and viewing the home, he said, “I don’t think the neighbor would have called, and if she did call, I don’t think the officers would have reacted the same.”
Expressing his fear about showing houses in the future, Brown raised a fundamental democratic question, “Am I just automatically the criminal? Because that’s how we were treated.”
Racism certainly played a role in the decisions made that day which led to the life-threatening police encounter, and one cannot help but agree with Brown’s “what if.”
But such episodes occur over and over in which a racial component is not involved, and police nonetheless conduct themselves as judge, jury and, in worst cases, executioners.
Every year, police kill a thousand or more people in the United States. Black men are proportionally overrepresented among these killings. But police murder workers of all races, and the largest number of victims are white.
The epidemic of police killings is a major aspect of the crisis of American capitalism. Over the course of decades of virtually continuous imperialist war, social inequality soared, and capitalist rule began to depend on ever more anti-democratic and violent forms of oppression. Out of this came the militarization of police departments, the war on immigrants and many other attacks on democratic rights.
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