Early one February morning, Aaron Torres was confronted by three police officers on his family’s Nanakuli property. The Honolulu Police Department has said the officers were responding to a 911 call. Torres was high on cocaine at the time. But after handcuffing him, the officers sat on him. Torres suffocated to death.

The case got a lot of publicity at the time because Torres, 37, worked with the Hawaii Five-O film crew as a transportation captain. He was a Hawaii Teamsters union member.

Now, Torres’ sister has filed suit in federal court against the city seeking damages for civil rights violations and emotional distress.

“The situation should have never happened,” said André Wooten, Tassa Torres’ attorney. “They didn’t follow procedures. After they handcuffed and shackled him, there was no reason for them to sit on him.”

Aaron Torres died on Feb. 20. An autopsy, conducted the next day, revealed that the cause of death was “mechanical asphyxia during police restraint due to cocaine-induced excited delirium,” said Heidi Garcia, a spokesperson for Honolulu’s Medical Examiner department. Investigative and toxicology reports also found that Torres had a “history of chronic cocaine abuse.”

According to the lawsuit filed Friday, Torres’ sister did not know why the police had shown up at their property.

After handcuffing Torres, they forced him to the ground. One officer sat on his back, while another sat on his shoulders and neck. A third officer sat on and shackled his legs. All the while, Torres — and family members witnessing the scene — protested and told officers they were hurting him.

Torres was 5 feet 6 inches tall and 160 pounds. After being pressed into the ground for an estimated 30 minutes, he stopped moving, according to the lawsuit.

Tassa Torres was appalled by how the officers treated her brother. The lawsuit describes the officers’ behavior as “shocking,” “outrageously abusive,” “reckless” and “assaultive.”

The medical examiner determined the cause of death to be homicide.

The police department in May turned internal investigations over to the Honolulu prosecutor’s office. But the prosecutor declined to press charges against the officers, according to office spokesperson Dave Koga. “There was no indication that they acted recklessly,” he said.

“The facts and circumstances indicated that the officers were justified in restraining Mr. Torres because of his behavior and that their use of force was reasonable given Mr. Torres’ combative actions and threatening words,” Koga said in an email. “There was no evidence to indicate criminal conduct on the part of the officers.”

Torres had been convicted of misdemeanor assault in 2003 and three other misdemeanor offenses in earlier years. Torres, whose nickname was “Spydah,” had also been charged with illegal possession of scorpions and spiders — a case in which Wooten had represented him.

The police departments’s internal investigation into the officers’ use of lethal force is still ongoing, said department spokesperson Michelle Yu. The department is also conducting an investigation into the lawsuit’s allegations. As of now, the officers — identified in court filings as M. Min, G. Kinosjita and A. Togami — are still on active duty, Yu said. They’ve served in the department for 11, 9 and 22 years, respectively.

The HPD declined to comment on the pending lawsuit.

Sister’s Allegations

Tassa Torres contends that her brother’s arrest was “dubious and questionable and arguably false,” according to the lawsuit. Facts listed in the document state that the officers knew that they didn’t have probable cause to arrest her brother and “used force…punitively out of anger,” causing an “unnecessary and untimely death.”

She alleges that the officers arrested her brother in violation of both his and her First Amendment rights to free speech. She also accuses the officers of “negligently and or [sic] intentionally and maliciously” seeking to deprive them of their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection of the law and freedom from illegal searches and seizure.

Tassa Torres is also suing the city for inflicting emotional distress “because she saw her brother die in front of her eyes,” said her attorney Wooten.

After handcuffing and shackling her brother, the officers warned family members at the scene to stay away as they choked him, according to the lawsuit. The officers’ actions were “outrageous, excessively brutal and violent and shocking to the conscience,” causing Tassa Torres “severe immediate and permanent emotional distress,” it reads.

Tassa Torres approached Wooten with her case a couple of months ago, he said. He expects the trial date to be scheduled in roughly four months — the normal time period for civil court proceedings.

Among the reparations Tassa Torres is seeking is monetary relief that amounts to $10 million.

“We would set an amount sufficient to get the city’s attention, but it’s ultimately up to the jury,” Wooten said. “But how much is a life worth? We put that at millions.”