Father and son sue HPD officers, Honolulu claiming excessive, deadly force in New Year’s manhunt

By Mika Miyashima

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    HONOLULU (KITV) — A father and son are suing the City and County of Honolulu, Honolulu police officers, and HPD and city officials, for what they claim is use of excessive and deadly force on New Year’s Day.

The federal lawsuit stems from the island-wide police chase and manhunt Jan. 1 that led to the death of Sidney Tafokitau. Tafokitau was wanted for attempted murder.

The plaintiffs live close to where the incident happened and one of the plaintiffs knows Tafokitau from Church.

Tevita Cadiente says he suffered serious physical, cognitive, and psychological injuries.

While the chase was going on — around 4:15 p.m. on New Year’s Day — Cadiente says two plain clothes officers pointed their weapons at him and shouted at him.

While Cadiente turned around to walk towards his father, he claims a large black police van climbed the curb, hit Cadiente, smashed him into a chain link fence, and caused him to slide under the police van.

Documents say multiple officers then pulled Cadiente out from under the police van and continually hit him with their hands and their weapons for several minutes.

Cadiente’s father Vaokehekehe Mataele was also at the scene.

Court documents say Mataele tried to tell officers he and his son were not involved in the manhunt.

The lawsuit says Mataele was pinned down by officers down the road from where Tafokitau died.

Just before 4:20 p.m., officers stopped beating Cadiente.

The partners of Cadiente and Mataele pleaded with officers to stop beating and manhandling the two but officers refused and then detained them.

Cadiente suffered a facial fracture, a hemorrhage in the left eye, a concussion, and orthopedic injury of the left knee.

Island News spoke with his attorney who says he continues to suffer cognitive impairment — including memory loss and confusion, vision loss, and pain when walking. He is scheduled for an MRI on Jan. 18.

“When they are beating my client’s face to a pulp, and pulling him out from under a car after trying to run him over, less than 300 yards in visual line of sight on University, the assailant was already shot, and had been shot several minutes prior” said attorney Michael Rudy. “So I ask, reasonably, what is HPD doing? Is it just vigilante? You have people not in radio communication? Was the radio of? Do they just not care?”

Island News reached out top HPD Wednesday afternoon. A spokesperson declined to comment citing the pending litigation.

The lawsuit was brought up at a Honolulu police commission meeting on Wednesday. Commission Chair Doug Chin advised HPD Chief Joe Logan to say a little something more than just “no comment due to pending litigation.”

“In other words, pending litigation is going to last for the next three years and I think there are some things for what it’s worth that the department could say such as — we’re reviewing the complaint, we always take allegations like this very very seriously, if any of these things turn out to be true,” Chin said.

“One I don’t know who the lawsuit is to, is it to HPD or the city, so that’s part of what we need to understand,” Chief Logan responded. “Do we understand that something happened we don’t know, we don’t know so I can’t go down the road trying to comment on something that I’m not sure what the allegations are. So once we receive if in fact it is to us and we have a chance to discern what it says then at that point in time I think you’re absolutely right.”

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