In 2012 I filed a lawsuit for a sister of Aaron Torres, who witnessed her brother Aaron Torres smothered to death when three police officers handcuffed, shackled and sat on him until he stopped breathing, permanently, after Aaron called 911 for medical help. The City and County of Honolulu ultimately paid Aaron Torres’ family more than $1 million, and the officers got promoted.

So, I really wished for Police Chief Susan Ballard’s statement that race had nothing to do with the police killing of the unarmed recent South African transplant to Honolulu, Lindani Myeni, in Nuuanu April 4. However, the more information that become available, the less true the soon-to-be former police chief’s statement proves to be.

The essential question is: How did the police officers approach the unarmed Black man, who was not accused of doing anything violent to anyone? Did they approach him the same way they would a white man?

Mr. Myeni clearly had attempted to have a conversation with the occupants of a vacation rental property close to his family’s residence. He had left without violence or taking anything.

HRS 703-307(2) states it is illegal for an officer to use force, unless and until the officer tells the person the reason the officer is arresting the person. That did not happen.

The ACLU has also pointed out that another Hawaii law, HRS 803-6, requires that police officers announce that they are officers of the law before or at the time of the arrest.

The partial video that has so far been released of the officers contacting Lindani Myeni, shows the officers did not announce that they were police officers or why they were arresting or even accosting Mr. Myeni, before pointing their guns at him, shining flashlights at him, demanding that he get down on the ground.

We are left to wonder if the officers had addressed Mr. Myeni in the manner prescribed by Hawaii law clearly and professionally — and not scared the “bejesus” out of him? Would he have reacted in that terrified manner if they had said they were police officers and why they wanted to talk to him, instead of pulling guns on him immediately before speaking and apparently triggering a “flight or fight” response?

Unfortunately, the guns-drawn manner the Honolulu police officers approached Mr. Myeni was similar to the out-of-proportion and ultimately illegal manner that the Minneapolis officers approached George Floyd, pulling guns on him for nonviolent allegations about a $20 petty misdemeanor.

So, was Chief Ballard overlooking the legal violations of Hawaii law and policy evidently displayed by the officers who killed Lindani Myeni, because she overlooks such infractions by all officers on all arrests, or just the arrests of unarmed Black men who have not been convicted of anything?

In any case, it is time the Honolulu Police Commission hired a police chief who will actually require police officers to follow the Hawaii law and act professionally, too. Such as the chief of police of Minneapolis, who testified against Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd and dishonoring his blue uniform.

Requiring the police officers to follow these Hawaii laws mandating announcing their status as law enforcement and reason for concern at the outset, might just defuse some situations involving citizens without guns, which do not need gasoline poured on already tense circumstances and emotions.

Otherwise, we would legalize a fact pattern allowing police to detain citizens for nonviolent infractions and petty misdemeanors, and then allowing them to kill people who are not felons or convicted of threatening danger with impunity, which is clearly disproportionate, unfair, arbitrary, capricious and flat-out wrong.

Andre Wooten is a Honolulu attorney.