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Honolulu police officers involved in the beating and arrest of a Tongan man near the scene of an officer-involved shooting last year will not be charged, according to Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm. 

Tevitatonga Sinamoni Vaokehekehe after Cadiente said he was hit by a police SUV and beaten by multiple officers during a police pursuit of an armed suspect on University Avenue in Mānoa on Jan. 1, 2024. The still-pending lawsuit alleges he was racially profiled.

Alm said during a press conference Thursday that officers mistook Cadiente for the suspect they were chasing, Sidney Tafokitau, who was armed with an AR-15 and had led police on an islandwide manhunt throughout the day. 

Tafokitau had gone on a spree of violent incidents that day, including shooting and wounding his ex-girlfriend, firing multiple rounds at a police van and carjacking a white Scion at gunpoint. He shot and injured two officers before he was killed by police. No officers were charged in that shooting, Alm announced last month. 

Police are still conducting an internal investigation into Cadiente’s beating and arrest, Honolulu police Chief Joe Logan said. He expects that investigation to last another two to three months. All the officers remain on duty, he said.

Shots Ring Out On A Busy Street

During their pursuit of Tafokitau, officers in an unmarked car were driving on Kapiʻolani Boulevard just after 4 p.m. when they heard on their radio that shots had been fired and an officer was down. As they turned onto University Avenue, they saw Cadiente running mauka up the avenue.

Officers pulled behind him and yelled “Stop, police!” multiple times. Cadiente looked at them, said “Oh fuck,” and started running makai down the avenue. 

At that point, Alm said, another officer driving a SWAT van saw Cadiente fleeing and drove his van onto the sidewalk to block him. Alm said the officer “inadvertently collided” with Cadiente and rammed him into a chainlink fence.

Five officers then surrounded Cadiente, who ignored repeated commands to put his hands behind his back, Alm said. The officers punched him in an attempt to subdue him and get his hands behind his back. One used his foot to push down on Cadiente’s shoulder. 

Cadiente’s father, Vaokehekehe Mouhungafa Mataele, was nearby on the ground with officers standing around him.

Cadiente kept reaching to his waist area, Alm said. One of the officers had seen something in Cadiente’s right hand and thought he was armed. The object turned out to be a cellphone. 

Alm said the officers’ use of force was justified because Cadiente was resisting arrest and they believed they were arresting Tafokitau, whom they knew to be armed and dangerous.  

Under Hawaii’s use of force law, Alm said, officers are allowed to use “whatever force needed to compel submission.” He also said, “The more serious the offense, the greater the justification for the use of force.”

Cadiente was never charged with a crime in connection with the incident.  

As officers struggled to subdue Cadiente, about 300 yards away on University Avenue officers were engaged in a firefight with Tafokitau, who shot at one vehicle and struck an officer in the abdomen at around 4:15 p.m., according to the prosecutor’s office.

Tafokitau got out of the Scion he had been driving near the intersection of University Avenue and Dole Street and began shooting at other police vehicles. Bullets hit one officer in the head, left eye and shoulder. Officers fired back, striking Tafokitau 23 times and killing him.

A Case Of Mistaken Identity?

Cadiente and Tafokitau were not only both tall, Polynesian men with facial hair, Alm said, they were wearing similarly patterned shorts that day. He showed pictures of their faces side by side as well as photographs of their shorts, which appeared to be a dark green and orange camouflage. 

Logan said cases of mistaken identity don’t happen often. He said the situation that day was “dynamic” and that officers’ mistake was understandable due to Cadiente’s proximity to Tafokitau as well as their similar features.

“If you look at it from an extreme standpoint of all the circumstances involved, it’s unfortunate but it happens,” he said. “Someone similarly dressed, similarly sized and of the same gender and nationality of the individual we were looking for, all of that fell into play.”

Alm also showed a clip of body camera footage from one of the officers who responded to the scene. It shows a man lying on the sidewalk and crying a few feet away from a group of officers who appear to be surrounding another person on the ground. The man crying is Cadiente’s father. 

The other group of officers surround Cadiente, who is on the ground and not visible in the video. One of the officers can be seen stepping on him again and again. 

That is the only body camera footage from the incident, Alm said. The five officers who surrounded, beat and arrested Cadiente were not wearing body cameras because they are members of the SWAT and Crime Reduction Unit, specialized divisions that aren’t required to use the devices. 

Until now, the video has not been made public. Christine Denton, spokesperson for the Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office, said it would be shared on its website by Friday.

How Prosecutors Decided Not To File Charges

In its investigation, Alm said the prosecutor’s office looked at reports the Honolulu Police Department shared with his office in addition to the body camera footage.

Through that, Alm said they concluded: “The officers had reasonable suspicion to detain and arrest (Cadiente) and probable cause. Cadiente refused to submit to arrest and fought violently with the officers.” 

Cadiente’s lawyer, Michael Rudy, told Civil Beat he could not comment on that conclusion. 

In his lawsuit, Cadiente said he and his father ran outside when they saw police cars passing their house. By then, they had heard about the pursuit of Tafokitau, a man they knew from the Tongan community and was from their local church. 

Cadiente said he started jogging toward the commotion because he thought he could help persuade Tafokitau to surrender. 

Cadiente said in his lawsuit that a police vehicle smashed him into a chainlink fence before a large group of officers bludgeoned him with their hands and the blunt ends of their weapons while he was ​​“crying, helpless and non resistant.” He suffered a facial fracture, a subconjunctival hemorrhage in his eye, a concussion and other injuries.

A trial has been scheduled for that lawsuit next year.