No charges will be filed against Honolulu police officers who shot and killed an armed man after an eight-hour standoff at a Waikīkī hotel in 2022.

Benjamin Moralez, 48, had barricaded himself inside his room on the fifth floor at the Ohia Waikiki Studio Suites Dec. 8, 2022, and fired multiple rounds out his window.

Officers shot him in the hallway early on Dec. 9, 2022, after he exited the room but refused to drop his gun.

Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm said police and crisis negotiators tried multiple methods over hours to persuade Moralez to surrender without incident, but he refused. Alm said officers were justified in shooting him because they feared for their lives.

“This really does appear to be another case of suicide by cop,” Alm said. “The Honolulu police officers present tried to do everything they could to have Mr. Moralez surrender peacefully. He was not interested.”

Other Officer-Involved Shootings

Of the 15 fatal officer-involved shooting investigations Alm’s office has completed, it has only tried to bring charges in one — the killing of 16-year-old Iremamber Sykap in 2021. A grand jury later declined to indict the officers and a district court judge ruled there was not sufficient probable cause to put them on trial. 

Alm said prosecutors inherited five pending shooting investigations when he took office in 2021 and have completed investigations for 10 fatal shootings that occurred since.

Alm said his office currently has four investigations pending. Those include the 2024 killings of Alston Awong in Waiʻanae and Eric Walsh in Honolulu.

The two other shootings prosecutors are investigating occurred last month. Police shot to death a man who had barricaded himself inside a boat at Keʻehi Boat Harbor. Officers also shot and injured a man in Mākaha after he rammed a police vehicle in a stolen car.

Another fatal shooting that was deemed justified by Alm’s office was the 2021 killing of Lindani Myeni outside of a vacation rental in Nuʻuanu.

Myeni’s family sued the City and County of Honolulu and the police department and the civil case went to trial last week after the City Council canceled its scheduled vote on a $1.5 million settlement in November.

‘I’m Not Going To Be Taken Alive’

Moralez, who had moved from California to Honolulu the previous year, had been struggling with his mental health at the time of the shooting, according to Alm’s report. The suspect was going through a divorce and had been staying at the hotel since May 30, 2022.

Moralez was diagnosed with bipolar disorder during the Covid-19 pandemic but had stopped taking his medications, Alm said. He was using marijuana and had told his mother that he was selling weed on the streets of Waikīkī. His autopsy found he had methamphetamine, marijuana and caffeine in his system. 

Moralez’s mother told investigators that he had become a different person in the last six months of his life. He watched the movie “Scarface” and idolized the main character Tony Montana, who is killed in a shootout, according to the prosecutor’s office.

His mother and other family members couldn’t be reached for comment.

Moralez had prepaid for his stay at the hotel with a $13,477 cashier’s check, but when it ran out, he repeatedly asked his mother for money to extend his stay. 

On Dec. 2, 2022, he told her, “Mom, I’m not going to be taken alive, you’re going to get a call,” Alm said. 

He continued paying for the hotel with a credit card, and on Dec. 7, 2022, told hotel staff he’d be checking out the next day at 1 p.m. 

At the time of his planned checkout, the hotel’s guest services manager went to the room to ask him to leave, but Moralez told her to call the police. 

When a patrol officer arrived, he knocked and announced his presence, but Moralez didn’t come to the door. At around 2 p.m. the officer heard a gunshot from inside the room. 

Investigators later found a bullet hole in the passenger rear door of the officer’s car, which was parked on Nohonani Street, and they believe Moralez shot the car from his balcony, Alm said. 

Officers with the department’s Specialized Services Division arrived on scene at around 2:30 p.m. and evacuated units on the fourth, fifth and sixth floors of the hotel. 

Crisis negotiators tried multiple times to call Moralez on the hotel landline and his cellphone, but he didn’t pick up. They also lowered a phone onto his balcony. Moralez fired one round toward the phone through the sliding glass door. 

Just before 6:30 p.m., officers used a small reconnaissance robot to drop another phone outside Moralez’s door. Officers told Moralez over the loudspeaker on their armored vehicle to answer their calls, but he didn’t pick up.

Lengthy Standoff

At around 10:20 p.m., officers fired wooden projectiles at the sliding doors of Moralez’s balcony to break the glass. Moralez fired multiple rounds back. 

About an hour later, police used a larger robot to ram the front door of Moralez’s unit. Officers used the loudspeaker to instruct Moralez to come out safely, but he did not.

Police used the robot’s arm to pull down the drapes on the windows inside the unit so they could see inside with a drone. When they did not see Moralez in the room, they used the robot to remove the bathroom door and found Moralez barricaded inside.

Finally, at around midnight, Moralez left the unit holding a black pistol in his right hand pointed toward the ceiling, Alm said. 

He began walking toward officers who were stationed at the south end of the hallway. They told him multiple times to drop the gun, but he refused. 

Surveillance camera from the hallway shows a shirtless Moralez walking with both hands in the air, the gun in one hand, and shaking his head. 

About halfway down the hallway, he began to lower the pistol toward the officers, and they fired at him multiple times. Paramedics brought him to The Queen’s Medical Center where he was pronounced dead just after 1 a.m. on Dec. 9, 2022. 

Body camera footage from the incident is not available because Specialized Services Division officers are not required to wear cameras.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the action the City Council took on the Lindani Myeni settlement.