Kaaawa Elementary School was locked down for more than an hour Tuesday afternoon as Honolulu police swarmed the sleepy neighborhood in search of a man who struck a police officer with a car in Pearl City several hours earlier.
The school was on lockdown from 1:40 to about 3 p.m.
The situation apparently ended at 2:50 p.m. when police arrested a 19-year-old man in Kaneohe. Initially police said he was the suspect in the Pearl City incident, but later reported that the man was arrested for car theft and had nothing to do with hitting the officer with a car.
Police opened an attempted-murder case in the Pearl City incident, and no suspect has been arrested.
Police Chief Louis Kealoha said the incident began at the 7-Eleven store at Lehua Avenue and Kamehameha Highway at about 12:05 p.m. A uniformed police lieutenant, on his way to work at the Pearl City station, noticed a stolen car and approached it.
The officer was struck by the open car door of the suspected vehicle as the driver was reversing out of the stall, police said.
Kealoha said the officer, who had his weapon out, was knocked to the ground and that his handgun went off accidentally but no one was hit. The injured lieutenant was taken to the hospital in serious condition with non-life-threatening injuries.
The fleeing car was not pursued by police, Kealoha said, but an all-points bulletin was issued.
Officers spotted the car in Kaaawa about an hour later.
Shortly thereafter, Kaaawa Elementary School officials put the 132-student campus on lockdown.
A Honolulu Police Department helicopter flew above the neighborhood, and one Kaaawa resident said police ordered people to stay indoors.
The officer, with more than 20 years on the police force, was placed on administrative leave after the discharge of his weapon, which is standard procedure.
