Hawaii police have shot and killed four people so far this year, twice as many as were fatally shot by officers during all of 2015, according to data collected by The Washington Post.
The newspaper has been studying fatal police shootings over the past two years in response to a series of high-profile cases that have led to widespread civil unrest, particularly in black communities.
Hawaii hasn’t experienced the same level of frustration among its citizenry.

The Post’s analysis focuses only on police shootings that result in death. In the first six months of 2016, at least 491 people were shot and killed by cops, according to a Thursday article from the newspaper.
That’s an increase from the same period in 2015, in which 465 died as a result of police shootings.
(The Post’s database continually tracks fatal police shootings. As of Monday morning, the number of people killed increased to 515.)
You can explore each of the incidents on the newspaper’s website. Here are the details collected by The Post on the four men shot and killed in Hawaii so far this year:




What sticks out in this group is that three of the men killed, Kalyp Rapoza, Scottie Yanagawa and Ronald Barawis, died at the hands of Hawaii County police officers.
In 2015, police officers statewide fatally shot two men.
On Aug. 5, 2015, Raymond Hodge, a 39-year-old black man, was killed in a park on Maui after he reportly pulled a gun and shot at officers.
On May 12, 2015, a member of a U.S. Marshals Service task force shot and killed armed fugitive Bruce Zalonka, 46, in a downtown Honolulu parking garage.
Missing from The Post’s database, however, are the names of other individuals who died after encounters with the police or while in police custody.
The Guardian newspaper has its own database, The Counted, that tracks all people killed by the police, not just those who were shot.
According to that data, at least five people have died in police incidents so far this year in Hawaii, making it the sixth-highest state on a per capita basis when it comes to police-related deaths.
That list includes the four men shot and killed by police in 2016 as well, as the death of Jonathan Watson, who died after a struggle with Hawaii County police.
According to The Guardian, Watson called the police to report he had been shot. When police arrived, Watson had a non-lethal wound on his leg. He then began fighting with officers and became unresponsive.
According to The Guardian’s figures, five people were killed by police in Hawaii in 2015.
In addition to Hodges and Zalonka, two men were killed after being struck by police cruisers. Honolulu police also killed a man while trying to subdue him with a Taser.
Those numbers put Hawaii at No. 39 in 2015 for police-related deaths and No. 26 when ranked on a per-capita basis. Hawaii is the 40th-most-populous state.
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About the Author
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Nick Grube is a reporter for Civil Beat. You can reach him by email at nick@civilbeat.org or follow him on Twitter at @nickgrube. You can also reach him by phone at 808-377-0246.