Two Honolulu police officers who shot and killed a man in a mental health crisis in 2025 will not face charges, Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm announced on Friday.

Sonny Siofele, 50, was armed and suicidal when he confronted police and was shot outside The Queen’s Medical Center that Oct. 2.

In the months before his death, Siofele, who also went by Perry Pauli, was receiving court-ordered mental health and substance abuse treatment. He was on federal post-conviction supervised release after serving an 11-year sentence for a federal drug conviction, according to prosecutors.

Just before the shooting, Siofele’s federal probation officer was trying to bring him into the hospital because he had told her his mind was “fucking with him,” he had been using drugs and alcohol and he was suicidal. When officers arrived on the scene and approached, Siofele put his hands in his front pocket and “settled into what appeared to be a shooting stance,” Alm said, before pulling out a gun and pointing it at the officers.

Within about five minutes of police being dispatched to the scene, Siofele was on the ground with two gunshots to the chest and back. Officers do not appear to have taken any steps to de-escalate the situation, other than to ask Siofele to show his hands. 

While there were no pedestrians or cars with drivers in the area at the time who needed protection, prosecutors found the officers were justified in using deadly force to protect themselves and their colleagues.

“In looking at this, the police officers followed their training. They acted professionally and reasonably in their use of deadly force,” Alm said. “Mr. Siofele was responsible for his own death. Unfortunately, this looks like — once again — another case of suicide by cop.”

History Of Mental Illness And Addiction

Court records show Siofele had been involved in the criminal justice system – and had struggled with addiction – for decades.

He was convicted of methamphetamine possession in 1999, landing him in prison for about 11 years. 

In 2018, he was convicted of two counts of assault on a law enforcement officer. After that conviction, he spent two months in prison, then was sentenced to 10 years of supervised release. Court records show he repeatedly violated the terms of that release, including the requirement to stay clean and sober. 

In the months leading up to his death, Siofele had been working with a psychiatrist to manage his mental health issues, although he had told his probation officer that July that he hadn’t been taking his medication. 

Still, his probation officer had told the court that she was optimistic that he was making some progress, records show.

“While he has acknowledged his drug use, Mr. Siofele has demonstrated notable progress in managing his mental health symptoms compared to previous terms of supervision and continues to show motivation to work collaboratively with” probation officers, according to a July 2025 report by his probation officer.

On the morning of Oct. 2, Siofele’s probation officer was trying to track him down after he’d missed a drug test the day before. When she spoke with him on the phone, Siofele told her he was suicidal. She called his case manager, and the three met up at the Honolulu Zoo. 

From there, Siofele agreed to go to the emergency department at The Queen’s Medical Center. His probation officer put him in a rideshare and followed him to the hospital. She arrived to find Siofele standing outside the hospital on Punchbowl Street. Siofele told her that he was tired of hearing voices and that he had a gun and wanted to die. He also told her that he did not want to hurt her or anyone else, according to the probation officer’s statement to police.

Siofele’s probation officer called 911 and told the dispatcher that Siofele was suicidal and armed with a gun. 

Three plainclothes officers from the District 1 Crime Reduction Unit arrived a few minutes later. One of the officers unholstered his gun as he got out of the unmarked van. Two officers approached Siofele, who was standing on the sidewalk in front of a concrete wall outside the emergency room. There were no pedestrians in the area, and little traffic. 

“I guess he couldn’t bring himself to kill himself, so he had the officers do it.”

Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm

When officers told Siofele to raise his hands, he instead pulled out a gun and pointed it at the officers, who made no attempt to disarm him but instead responded by shooting.

Prosecutors later found one bullet in Siofele’s gun. Alm said it appears that Siofele shot once but didn’t hit anything. 

“I guess he couldn’t bring himself to kill himself, so he had the officers do it,” Alm said. “And that to me is so unfair, because they have to live with this, even though they did nothing wrong, they’re the ones who ended up shooting and killing somebody.”

Alm said the officers did “absolutely nothing wrong” and nothing they could have done differently would have changed the outcome.  

“In an ideal world, there’d be a therapist or a social worker in every police car to deal with these things,” he said. “But even in that case, when somebody calls 911 and there’s a fear of violence, the police have to control that situation first, otherwise you’re going to have a dead therapist or a dead social worker in some of these cases.”