Honolulu Police Officer Sued For Killing Mentally Ill Man
A federal lawsuit alleges the officer didn’t follow proper聽use-of-force protocol for dealing with someone suffering from mental illness.
The brother of a Waipahu man fatally shot聽by police is suing the Honolulu officer who he says is responsible for the death, alleging that the officer didn鈥檛 follow proper procedure for handling people with mental illness.
Victor Rivera, 43, was shot by police in his backyard Dec. 14, 2013. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2010.
Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha at the time of the shooting that Rivera had threatened responding officers with a 12-foot-long metal pole used to pick mangoes. The pole, Kealoha said, had a 6-inch blade on its tip.
The dead man鈥檚 brother, Randy Rivera, filed a lawsuit in federal court last week that states it was the police who escalated the situation.
Randy Rivera says in court records that he called 911 in an effort to get his brother to a hospital for treatment.
Officer Tyler Fujimoto arrived at the Rivera home in Waipahu at 3:20 a.m., where the brothers lived with their parents.
Randy Rivera claims he told Fujimoto that Victor had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and that he hadn鈥檛 been taking his medication. He also told Fujimoto that police had come to the house the week before for a similar episode, and that Victor had voluntarily gone to the hospital in an ambulance.
The lawsuit states Fujimoto never told his superiors that information when calling for back-up.
When three more officers arrived at the home, all four entered the backyard with their guns drawn. Victor became 鈥渢errified鈥 and picked up the mango stick, the suit states
One of the officers deployed a Taser into Victor鈥檚 chest, at which point he he dropped the pole and fell to one knee grabbing his stomach, the suit states. Then Fujimoto, 鈥渨ithout reason or provocation,鈥 opened fire, the suit states.
Fujimoto emptied all nine rounds in his gun clip, hitting Victor in the chest, stomach, legs and forearm, the suit states. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Randy Rivera is being represented by Honolulu-based attorney Michael Green. The City & County of Honolulu is also named as a defendant in the case.
You can read the full complaint here:
