5 officers will not be charged in mistaken arrest of 25-year-old
HONOLULU POLICE DEPARTMENT Sindney Tafokitau, 44, left, and Tevita Cadiente, 25.
1 /2 HONOLULU POLICE DEPARTMENT Sindney Tafokitau, 44, left, and Tevita Cadiente, 25.
JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO @STARADVERTISER.COM Honolulu Police Chief Arthur 'Joe ' Logan responded Thursday to an earlier news conference by the prosecutor's office regarding a mistaken arrest by HPD officers.
2 /2 JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO @STARADVERTISER.COM Honolulu Police Chief Arthur 'Joe ' Logan responded Thursday to an earlier news conference by the prosecutor's office regarding a mistaken arrest by HPD officers.
HONOLULU POLICE DEPARTMENT Sindney Tafokitau, 44, left, and Tevita Cadiente, 25.
JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO @STARADVERTISER.COM Honolulu Police Chief Arthur 'Joe ' Logan responded Thursday to an earlier news conference by the prosecutor's office regarding a mistaken arrest by HPD officers.
Five officers were justified in using force and will not be charged with crimes for mistakenly arresting a 25-year-old man who was running toward a standoff with an attempted murder suspect who had evaded police and shot two of them, Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm announced Thursday.
Sindney Tafokitau, a 44-year-old attempted murder suspect, shot his ex-girlfriend with an AR-15 assault rifle before leading officers on an islandwide manhunt on Jan. 1, 2024. Tafokitau was high on cocaine and alcohol, and shot and wounded two officers on University Avenue before he was shot 23 times and killed.
Amid the fray, Tevita Cadiente, 25, was intercepted by police as he ran toward where Tafokitau confronted officers for the final time. Cadiente and Tafokitau are both tall, Polynesian males with facial hair who were wearing similar patterned shorts that day, Alm said.
Alm decided in December that officers were against Tafokitau, who had told relatives that he was not going to return to prison.
He refused repeated verbal commands to surrender, tried to run away and fought back against police who tried to detain and arrest him, according to the findings of a Honolulu Police Department criminal investigation.
'Arrests of people who do not want to be arrested are often violent encounters. That's why the Legislature has given to police to use whatever degree of force is necessary to get to submission. If you have never seen somebody getting arrested who doesn't want to get arrested, it is a violent encounter, ' Alm said. 'People fight like hell not to get arrested. There are numerous examples of how this puts HPD officers at risk.'
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Cadiente allegedly knew Tafokitau from 'the clubs.'
He was aware Tafokitau was being chased by police and 'ran out to record it, ' according to the police probe. Cadiente admitted to having Tafokitau's name and number in his cellphone under the name 'Nuketown.'
He told police he tried calling Tafokitau 'twice that day, but he did not answer.'
'In this case the responding Honolulu police officers believed that Tevita Cadiente was in fact Sidney Tafokitau. The officers knew that Tafokitau had just driven up University Avenue, and Cadiente was running down University Avenue away from where shots were fired and an officer was hit. The radio said, 'He's running.' Both Tafokitau and Cadiente are tall Polynesian males with facial hair and were wearing similarly patterned shorts, ' Alm told reporters Thursday during a news conference announcing that the use of force by the officers was justified. 'As a result, the officers attempted to arrest Tevita Cadiente.' Cadiente resisted their efforts to arrest him. The officers then used such force 'as necessary to compel the person to submission.'
None of the five officers involved in the submission and arrest of Cadiente were wearing body-worn cameras because they are assigned to plainclothes details that are not required to wear them.
Alm showed the few minutes of body-worn camera footage from a patrol officer who came upon the scene of Cadiente's arrest.
The footage shows officers clustered around Cadiente, with one of the officers holding Cadiente's wrist as another repeatedly asks him to stop resisting. An officer is seen applying his weight to Cadiente's shoulders with his shoe to get him to release his arm into the handcuffing position.
Alm said the specialized plainclothes officers were professional, calm and accustomed to making arrests under extreme circumstances.
Depositions of the officers are against HPD and the city that was brought by Cadiente and his father.
The federal civil suit against the city brought by Cadiente and his father, Vaokehekehe Mata ele, 49, is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 2 before U.S. District Judge Micah W.J. Smith.
Honolulu Police Chief Arthur 'Joe ' Logan told reporters during a separate news conference Thursday that HPD appreciated the 'thorough investigation and review ' done by Alm's office.
It was a 'dynamic situation '
that necessitated 'rapid decision-making ' in an effort to stop a threat. Officers had to act quickly under 'pressure and extreme circumstances, ' Logan said.
'I'm extremely proud of the officers who take on the daily challenges of protecting and serving our community. Police work is important, often difficult and rarely recognized, ' said Logan. 'But we do it and continue to do it because it's the right thing to do.'
The results of an internal administrative investigation into the officer's conduct is expected to be completed in two to three months, he said.
Cadiente thought the first officer who pulled up beside him and got out with a gun and was yelling at him was 'Pepe's boy with a gun, ' according to the police investigation.
Cadiente knew Tafokitau as 'Pepe, ' according to HPD. Police found no evidence that Cadiente was helping Tafokitau that day.
At 4 :14 p.m. Jan. 1, 2024, two officers driving on Kapiolani Boulevard in an unmarked car heard from dispatch that shots were fired and an officer was down. Through the radio, the officer riding in the passenger seat 'heard gunshots and a male yelling.'
The officer driving then turned up University Avenue. Hearing 'He's running ' on the radio, the two officers saw Cadiente running mauka up University Avenue.
'Believing that Cadiente was Tafokitau, ' the officer driving pulled the car up next to Cadiente while the other officer leaned out the passenger window and yelled to Cadiente, 'Stop, police !' several times, according to the findings.
The officer then got out wearing a vest with a badge and 'POLICE ' in large letters across the front.
Cadiente looked at them and said an expletive before turning around and running in the opposite direction on University Avenue.
Cadiente allegedly tried to run away from the officer before a police van hopped a curb in an attempt to cut him off and drove him into a fence.
An officer pulled Cadiente to the ground face-first. Cadiente resisted arrest despite multiple verbal warnings to surrender.
Officers punched and restrained him and tried to handcuff him, but he kept reaching for what officers believed was a weapon in his waistband or dark-colored objects under the police van that could have been weapons, according to the police probe.
One officer felt he was in danger of Cadiente gaining control of his weapon.
'Cadiente was yelling and resisting, continuing to pull his hands under his chest, preventing the officers from handcuffing him, ' Alm said. One of the officers 'delivered several distracting strikes ' to Cadiente's torso with his fist and pulled on his left arm to enable handcuffing.
Cadiente suffered a facial fracture, a traumatic subconjunctival hemorrhage, a concussion, orthopedic knee injuries, cognitive impairment including memory loss and confusion, and vision loss.
His knee was injured when it was hit by the police van, and the injuries to his face were caused when an officer pulled him to the ground face-first, Alm said.
Alm noted that state law allows broad discretion for police officers to do what is necessary to gain submission over a suspect resisting arrest.
State law also makes clear that whenever a crime is committed and the 'offenders are unknown, and any person is found near the place where the crime was committed, either endeavoring to conceal oneself, or endeavoring to escape, or under such other circumstances as to justify a reasonable suspicion of the person being the offender, the person may be arrested without warrant.'
Robert Cavaco, an HPD lieutenant and president of the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, told the Star-Advertiser that 'the officers' union agrees with Alm's finding that our officers' actions were legal and justified.'
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