Police officers were justified in using lethal force to end an hours-long standoff with an armed man in Waikīkī three years ago, the county prosecuting attorney ruled Tuesday.
On May 30, 2022, 48-year-old Benajmin Moralez booked a fifth-story room at the ‘Ōhi‘a Waikīkī Studio Suites, pre-paying for a months-long stay using a cashier’s check of more than $13,000.
Moralez would end his stay at the ‘Ōhi‘a Waikīkī that December with an armed standoff that would leave him dead.
Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm said Tuesday that the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney has concluded an investigation of the incident and found that the two officers who fatally shot Moralez were justified, and that the incident was a sad case of “suicide by cop.”
Alm said that subsequent interviews with Moralez’s mother suggest that he was facing a particularly rough patch in his life. He had recently divorced his wife, had quit his job, and had stopped taking medication for bipolar disorder.
Instead, Moralez was self-medicating with marijuana and had “seemingly become a different person” during the last six months of his life. His mother subsequently told police officers that he had recently seen the gangster film “Scarface” and began idolizing the movie’s main character Tony Montana.
“He was just so hell-bent on going out with a … gosh, people were going to know his name,” Moralez’s mother told police, according to a report by the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney.
Moralez had told his mother in December that he was “not going to be taken alive.”
On Dec. 8, the guest services manager at the ‘Ōhi‘a Waikīkī told Moralez it was time for him to check out. Instead, Moralez told the manager to call the police and to stand away from the doorway when officers arrived.
When police did respond, they knocked on his door and heard a gunshot from within the room.
After this followed a tense standoff. Police evacuated everyone from the fourth, fifth and sixth floors of the ‘Ōhi‘a Waikīkī and repeatedly attempted to make contact with Moralez, who was confirmed to have a handgun.
Alm said officers attempted to call Moralez through the hotel phone, his cell phone and a “drop phone,” that officers lowered onto his balcony from an upper-floor unit. Moralez responded with either silence or, in the case of the drop phone, with a gunshot through the balcony door.
Police also delivered a phone to Moralez’s unit using a robot, to which Moralez did not respond.
Ultimately, a second police robot was used to breach the door shortly before midnight. The machine broke into Moralez’s unit, removed window drapes so officers could see into the room and broke into the unit bathroom where Moralez was.
Moralez then left the room and entered the hallway holding his gun above his head. Two officers — a 43-year-old officer who began service in 2009 and a 45-year-old corporal who began in 2002 — wielding rifles demanded he drop the weapon, to which he only shook his head while advancing down the hall.
As Moralez walked, he appeared to begin to quickly lower his hand holding the gun. Both officers took this as an aggressive act and fired multiple times, striking him twice.
One shot was found to have only grazed Moralez’s neck, while the other punched through his thigh, severing his femoral artery and breaking his femur. EMTs would declare him dead in the early hours of Dec. 9 at Queen’s Medical Center. Postmortem toxicology analysis found the presence of methamphetamine and marijuana.
Alm also said he believes Moralez was uncooperative in the ambulance, which may have prevented him from receiving treatment for his injuries in time, although the DPA report does not mention any such behavior.
Alm said police made every effort to communicate with Moralez and de-escalate the situation before resorting to lethal violence, specifically praising the use of police robots to minimize risk.
But, Alm said Moralez “was a violent, dangerous person at this point in his life.” He had already fired his handgun 10 times before entering the hallway that final time, and had developed an “outlaw mentality” that made him unwilling to peacefully surrender.
Because of this behavior, Alm said the officers had a reasonable belief that Moralez posed a substantial risk of causing serious injury or death to others, and will therefore not face any charges.
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