A judge’s key decision to decline probable cause in the high-profile Iremamber Sykap case was met with cries of relief from family members of the three Honolulu Police Department officers accused in the April 5 shooting of the 16-year-old fleeing arrest after a crime spree.
District Court Judge William M. Domingo found that the prosecutor’s evidence did not support the murder and attempted murder charges sought by the prosecutor. But it should not stand as uncritical vindication for everything the officers did.
And the understandable emotional response from the defendants and the jubilation of their colleagues should not obscure the fact that this case remains a wakeup call for police.
It’s one that spotlights the ongoing need for renewal of its use-of-force training, and for reinforcing public trust, especially with the Micronesian community to which the teen belonged.
Every aspect of the Sykap case was controversial, including the decision by city Prosecutor Steven Alm to seek the charges in court after he failed to get an indictment from the grand jury.
It also elicited divisions among Oahu residents over whether the shooting at Kalakaua Avenue and Philip Street, which capped an extended pursuit of a stolen Honda, had been truly unavoidable.
The court had considered hours of testimony over the six-day preliminary hearing, including a detailed review of body-camera footage of the chase at the end. The car, stolen from Kailua, was associated with a series of violent robberies and a home invasion in which the victims said the suspects were armed.
Sykap, accompanied by five passengers during the culminating chase, was driving when the car lurched into the canal. He was shot eight times by Officer Geoffrey H.L. Thom. The occupants had been ordered to stop and exit the car, according to testimony.
Even with that level of mayhem, the criteria for probable cause for murder or attempted murder are difficult to meet. Given the chaotic endgame, justifying such charges against police requires that a high bar be set.
Domingo said Officers Thom, Zackary K. Ah Nee and Christopher J. Fredeluces had faced “a very dangerous situation … it was not something you could piece together … it never stopped until the car ended up in the canal.”
That may be correct in terms of weighing these charges, but such deadly-force actions should not be seen as inevitable in police encounters with suspects. Honolulu police are still accountable for meeting their own commitments to a more measured approach.
This shooting occurred in the wake of a global movement to curb police violence, one that had played out for months after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.
Sensitivities to the issue may have waned somewhat since then, but HPD still should be concerned about how its own community sees its actions in this context.
Immediately preceding this incident, as well as the April 14 officer-involved fatal shooting of Lindani Myeni in Nuuanu, HPD had amended its use-of-force policy, placing a new emphasis on de-escalation tactics. The department needs to examine how those might have been better applied to the Sykap case.
Alm has delayed his public discussion of the case until Monday, though a written statement underscored his department’s “disappointment.”
Regardless of Domingo’s dismissal, however, the case helped the community to witness this exposition of evidence, which had been kept under wraps during the grand-jury process.
Transparency helps the public better understand the complex and difficult dynamic of law enforcement, and it ultimately works in favor of the officers themselves, perhaps more than they realize.
