HONOLULU — Honolulu police on Friday released the 911 call a frightened woman made about a stranger in her home, which led to officers shooting and killing him.
“I don’t know him,” she told the dispatcher, who asked her several times about the man’s ethnicity.
“Is he white? Is he Black? Is he local?” the dispatcher asked. The woman, who sounded like she was crying through much of the call, eventually answered, “Black.”
When gunshots rang out, the dispatcher exclaimed, “Oh my God.”
According to police, Lindani Myeni, 29, walked into the Honolulu home on April 14, sat down and took off his shoes.
When police arrived, an officer ordered Myeni onto the ground, but he assaulted an officer and punched him until he briefly lost consciousness, police said. A stun gun didn’t appear to have an effect on him, police said.
In body camera footage police released, three gunshots rang out before an officer said, “police.”
Myeni’s wife has filed a wrongful death lawsuit that said officers shined blinding high-intensity flashlights at him and that as a trained rugby player, he defended himself against an armed assailant.
Police were motivated by racial discrimination, the lawsuit alleged, noting the father of two was a South African national of Zulu ancestry.