Honolulu police filed a lawsuit over the shooting after the deal stalled

A lawsuit over the 2021 police killing of an unarmed black man in Honolulu will go to trial after the city council voted Thursday to return the case to trial.

Council members were poised to approve a $1.5 million settlement in the wrongful-death case of Lindani Mieni at a meeting last month, but postponed the vote after a strong manifestation of opposition from dozens of Honolulu police officers, as well as city officials, including Mayor Rick Blangiardi and District Attorney Steve Alm.

Armed and uniformed police crowded the room as Myeni’s widow gave emotional evidence about her husband’s killing in support of the settlement.

City Council President Tommy Waters canceled a new vote scheduled for Thursday, saying the matter was before the courts. He said the discussion of the case at last month’s meeting devolved “into what resembled a heated civil trial, with speakers presenting impassioned arguments and facts from both sides.”

The parties will meet next Thursday for a scheduling conference to set a trial date. Bridget Morgan-Bickerton, representing Myeni’s widow, said the trial could last three to five weeks.

Before last year’s meeting, the council’s executive legal commission recommended that the full council approve the agreement. The city’s corporation counsel and attorneys for Myeni’s widow, Lindsey Myeni, agreed to a settlement on September 24.

High emotions

Morgan-Bickerton said the council’s decision to abandon action on the settlement, effectively canceling it, surprised her team.

“We’ve definitely never seen anything like this before,” Morgan-Bickerton said.

She disputed the appearance of dozens of Honolulu police officers at last month’s meeting armed and in uniform, calling it “intimidation and intimidation.”

In a statement, Waters noted the strong emotions involved and said the case should be handled within the court system.

Honolulu Police Chief Joe Logan said the department respects Waters’ decision.

“While it is tragic that a life was lost, we believe that there is a principle at stake here and that a judge or jury should have the opportunity to hear what happened that night,” the statement said. “I thank our officers for their courageous service and the community for their continued support of HPD.”

In his statement, Alm said that approving the deal would imply that the officers involved were motivated by racial bias. Lindsay Myeni’s attorneys said officers treated Lindani differently because he was black.

But Alm said there was “no evidence for that.”

“If officers do something wrong, they should be held accountable,” the statement said. “But when they do something right, they need to be protected.”

Exonerated from wrongdoing

The officers were shot 29-year-old Lindani Myeni On April 14, 2021, Mieni was charged with trespassing after a fight outside a vacation rental in Honolulu.

The two officers who fired the weapons, Brent Sylvester and Garrick Orozco, were exempt from wrongdoing by the Alm office in June 2021.

Orozco suffered multiple facial fractures during the fight, and Alm noted that the officer was unable to return to work.

But Myeni’s widow’s lawyers say the officers did not announce they were police when they approached the former South African rugby player that night. Because it was dark and they were shining bright flashlights in his face, he couldn’t see who they were and tried to defend himself from the unknown attackers, according to the lawsuit.

Morgan-Bickerton said she was confident the jury would find in her client’s favor. She said the lawyers were not asking for a specific amount of damages, but she called the previously agreed amount “pocket change” for Myeni’s widow and his two young children.

“It’s very hard not to understand that the police are at fault here and that they did something wrong,” she said. “The entire opposition completely ignores the facts.”

Lindani Mieni was a great athlete, a great singer and a stand-up comedian, his friend Mateo Montoya-Collis said in a phone interview. Montoya-Collis met Mieni in 2017 while playing rugby with the American Raptors Rugby Club in Glendale, Colorado.

Montoya-Collis flew in from Colorado to testify at Thursday’s City Council meeting. He said he was disappointed on behalf of the Myeni family to see the settlement vote overturned. He said he would return to Hawaii to testify in court if called as a witness.

He called it “unpleasant” to think of Myeni’s children growing up without a father. During the time they played together, he said he was always inspired by Myeni’s ability to cheer people up and support his teammates.

“He was a great teammate, he was a great friend,” he said. “He left an indelible impression on me.”

Other agreed settlements

Separately, the board approved two other proposed solutions in accordance with the committee’s recommendations last week.

One of them was settlements in the amount of 670,000 US dollars in federal lawsuit filed by LGBTQ+ bar Scarlet Honolulu and Gay Island Guide’s newsletter v. Honolulu Liquor Commission, which was accused of using its authority to violate the plaintiffs’ civil rights.

In addition to the cash award, the deal included oversight by a federal judge to make sure the liquor commission made progress on implementing longstanding recommendations from city audits to help root out a history of corruption and other allegations of misconduct.

Another came after a 10-year-old girl was arrested and handcuffed for drawing what appeared to be a firearm with its head on the ground at school, according to court documents.

Tamara Taylor, the girl’s mother, sued the Honolulu Police Department and the Hawaii Department of Education in 2022, alleging that the police used excessive force and unlawful discrimination against her daughter, a black girl with ADHD, who was the only child punished despite the participation of other students. The settlement is $150,000.

Civil Beat reporter Ben Angarone contributed to this report.