HONOLULU (AP) — Honolulu’s city council on Wednesday authorized $1 million to settle a lawsuit by the family of a 16-year-old boy who was shot and killed by police.

The fatal shooting of Iremamber Sykap in 2021 came amid a national reckoning over police use of force, but the case also highlighted racism toward Micronesians in Hawaii.

If the lawsuit Sykap’s family filed against the city and police officers had gone to trial they would have sought $8 million to $10 million in general damages, their attorney Eric Seitz said.

“Shooting a kid in the back of the head eight times when he wasn’t armed, he didn’t pose any threat to the police officers, is very likely to have really upset a lot of jurors,” he said.

The family accepted far less because of the “undercurrent of racism” in the case,

See Full Page