Search fatalities

Brandon Ventura

Age : 33

Gender : Male

Race : Indigenous Hawaiian

Date : 08/27/2021

Location : Kamakee Vista Apartments, 1065 Kawaiahao Street

City : Honolulu

County : Honolulu

State : Hawaii

Agency : Honolulu Police Department

Officer(s) :Not Disclosed

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during mental health crisis

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 08/27/2021, at approximately 1:40 p.m., 33-year-old Brandon Ventura called 911 from his 15th-floor apartment at Kamakee Vista in Honolulu's Kakaako neighborhood. Ventura told the dispatcher that his girlfriend had broken up with him, that he was suicidal and had a loaded handgun to his head. He also said he had not taken his medication that day. Police arrived approximately 11 minutes later.
Honolulu Police Department officers established a perimeter and attempted to persuade Ventura to leave the apartment. HPD requested a crisis negotiator, but the situation eventually escalated to deployment of four officers from the department's Specialized Services Division, HPD's SWAT unit. The SWAT officers entered the building approximately two hours into the encounter.
According to the later civil lawsuit filed by Ventura's father, the four-officer team included an officer armed with an M4 rifle, another carrying a 40mm less-lethal launcher, an officer carrying a ballistic shield and handgun, and a fourth designated as the contact officer. The contact officer was not a trained crisis negotiator. Ventura eventually threw a knife and an ammunition magazine outside the apartment but retained his handgun.
Shortly after 4:30 p.m., Ventura came out of the apartment with the handgun pressed against his own temple. According to the lawsuit, the officer carrying the less-lethal launcher instructed Ventura to remove his finger from the trigger and lower the handgun, and Ventura complied. That officer then fired a foam projectile at Ventura. The SWAT team rushed him, with one officer grabbing the hand containing the handgun while other officers pushed Ventura back inside the apartment and pinned him against the kitchen counter.
During the struggle, the SWAT officer providing lethal cover fired an M4 rifle at Ventura from approximately five to ten feet away, striking him in the head and killing him. Police maintained that Ventura pointed his handgun toward officers during the struggle. The later civil lawsuit disputed HPD's characterization of the encounter and alleged that Ventura was attempting to surrender when police escalated to physical force and killed him.
The Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney's Office conducted an investigation lasting nearly a year. On 08/04/2022, Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm announced that the SWAT officer who killed Ventura would not be criminally charged. Alm concluded that police had attempted available de-escalation measures and that the fatal shooting was legally justified because Ventura pointed his handgun toward officers.
In August 2023, Ventura's father, Dean Ventura, filed a civil lawsuit against the City and County of Honolulu and the four SWAT officers involved in his son's death. The lawsuit alleged negligence, assault and battery and argued that police violated HPD's de-escalation policy by escalating a suicidal mental-health crisis rather than allowing trained crisis negotiators additional time to work with Ventura.
The lawsuit emphasized that Ventura had experienced suicidal ideation during five previous encounters with police and alleged that HPD should have recognized the encounter primarily as a mental-health crisis. Attorney Sean Fitzsimmons argued that police unnecessarily compressed the time and physical space available for de-escalation and that the SWAT team's use of the foam projectile precipitated the fatal confrontation.
The identities of the four SWAT officers, including the officer who fired the fatal rifle shot, were withheld from the public. The prosecutor's investigative report redacted their names, and HPD subsequently declined to identify them while the civil lawsuit was pending.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/08/28/breaking-news/honolulu-police-fatally-shoot-armed-man-after-hours-long-standoff/
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2021/08/28/man-killed-by-police-after-hours-long-standoff-in-honolulu/
https://www.khon2.com/local-news/man-shot-and-killed-by-hpd-after-hours-long-standoff/
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/08/27/breaking-news/honolulu-police-close-kamakee-street-in-kakaako-after-reports-of-gunman/
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2022/08/04/live-prosecutor-discuss-his-investigation-into-2021-police-shooting-that-left-suspect-dead/
https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/08/honolulu-prosecutors-office-wont-charge-swat-officer-who-killed-kakaako-man/
https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/09/city-hpd-face-lawsuit-over-2021-killing-of-kakaako-man/