Final ruling:
No excessive force
in Laulusa shooting
The city prosecutor uses a report
By Crystal Kua
from a ballistics expert to make his ruling
Star-BulletinThere was no pause in the short burst of police gunfire that killed Rodney Laulusa at Palolo Valley Housing in January, leading city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle to determine that the officers who fired the shots did not use excessive force, Carlisle said yesterday.
"I'm convinced that there isn't sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against any of the officers," Carlisle said.
Carlisle earlier determined that police were justified in shooting Laulusa, who refused to drop two butcher knives while urging police to shoot him.
But Carlisle needed more time to consult with a mainland wound ballistic expert to help him determine whether the number of shots fired - 20 bullets with Laulusa struck 15 times - constituted excessive force.
Laulusa called 911 on Jan. 22 to report a disturbance.
When police arrived, they found Laulusa wielding two butcher knives.
The officers drew their guns and walked toward him, telling Laulusa to drop his knives.
Witnesses heard Laulusa say, "Shoot me, shoot me." At one point, Laulusa lunged at the officers, who then opened fire. The eruption of gunfire lasted just seconds.
Carlisle consulted Dr. Martin L. Fackler of Florida, a wound ballistic expert, and provided him with photographs, diagrams, police reports and witness statements.
Carlisle asked Fackler to determine whether Laulusa was shot while on the ground or when he was falling down.
In a letter, Fackler responded that "one cannot tell, from the physical evidence, whether a shot struck Mr. Laulusa while he was falling and nearly in his final position, or was already there."
Carlisle said that the most important finding by Fackler was that he couldn't determine scientifically that an excessive number of shots were fired.
"So, you're left then, basically, with what the witness accounts of what happened were," he said. "And if you take a look at that and put it in conjunction with the law, you realize . . . the shooting lasted for a very finite period of time without any intervening pauses."
For excessive force to have occurred, the police officers would have had to perceive that the threat had ended and then make a conscious or reckless step forward to continue to shoot, Carlisle said.
Fackler's report helps show there was "a short burst of firing that came to a conclusion before there was any sort of time for the officers to regroup and rethink what they were doing and then consciously go one step further and continue to fire," Carlisle said.
For example, if there were a pause in the gunfire and one of the officers shot an immobilized Laulusa in the back of the head, that would probably lead closer to criminal charges, he said.
"But if you take a look (at Fackler's report), the shots were all over the place. Some of the strikes were ricochets, apparently," Carlisle said.
Carlisle said his final determination ends his role in the case.
"In terms of whether this is good policy, whether the police could have done things differently, I'll leave that to the civil arena," Carlisle said.
The Laulusa family lawyer, who has filed a federal lawsuit in the case, did not return a telephone call for comment.
Wounds on Laulusa
A list of the locations of bullet wounds of Rodney Laulusa, who was killed by police gunfire in January:
No. 1: Location: right chest. Bullet: removed at hospital. Injury: flesh wound. Severity: survivable.
