Lindani Myeni Killed By Honolulu Cops After Entering Wrong House

Damn, Hawaii…

Source: Hirurg / Getty

In the midst of the various stories about police killing Black folks you rarely hear about the cases that happen outside of the greater 50 states. However, you would be naive to think that this bloody phenomenon isn’t happening in United States territories outside of North America. One such case happened recently in Honolulu, Hawaii where police shot and killed a 29-year-old South African man named Lindani Myeni according to Yahoo! News.

Myeni’s wife, a white woman named Lindsay, says that they moved to the island from Denver and three months later her husband was dead at the hands of the state.

“We never thought anything like this would ever happen there,” Lindsay Myeni, who is white, told The Associated Press in an interview from her husband’s hometown, Empangeni in Kwazulu-Natal province.

Let 12 tell it, Lindani was on his way home and entered the wrong house by mistake. He had taken off his shoes and sat on the couch when the scared legal occupant called 911. Upon arrival, police say that Lindani was non-cooperative and gave a concussion to one of the officers. Two body camera videos were released publicly but the footage is described as “difficult to see in the dark.” However, what can be heard is three shots being fired and THEN shouting of “POLICE!”

Lindsay told authorities she believes her husband mistook the house for a Hare Krishna temple next door. Myeni’s widow described him as a Christian who was deeply connected to the Zulu culture. She suspects that he might have been looking for a spiritual place to pray in the new neighborhood. Earlier that day, Lindsay said she felt like her husband may have been stressed because something “felt off.”

Lindani was wearing a traditional Zulu headband called a “umqhele” during the time of his death. His wife suspects that because he took his shoes off at the door, that he came into the house with respectful intentions.

Sounds shady to us, how bout you? Hawaii inhabits 1.5 million people of which 3.6% identify as Black. Curiously, despite the worldwide uprising as a result of these types of police killings, the community has been relatively quiet about Lindani’s death.

Myeni’s death “would have generated mass protests in any other American city,” said Kenneth Lawson, a Black professor at University of Hawaii’s law school.

“When you’re told you live in a paradise and you point out that it’s not paradise for people of color, that makes people uncomfortable,” he said.

Sounds more like a gangsta’s paradise and police are the gangstas.