72
Authorities have dropped a case against an Laie man originally suspected of shooting his son, and have instead charged the gunshot victim with robbery relating to the incident.
Kip Orton, 41, of Laie was shot in the upper-right chest Sunday at his family’s Naupaka Street home. But as he was being discharged Monday from the Queen’s Medical Center, police arrested him. He was charged with first-degree robbery and made his first court appearance yesterday.
The city prosecutor’s office, meanwhile, is choosing not to charge his father, 72-year-old Kenneth Orton, who was arrested Sunday on suspicion of shooting his son.
A police affidavit said Kip Orton kicked open the locked door of his parents’ bedroom Sunday and demanded cash and prescription pain medication. The son brandished a knife as he made his demands, the affidavit said.
As his mother, Florence Orton, tried to call police, Kip Orton grabbed her and took the phone away from her, the affidavit said.
Kenneth Orton told his son to leave his mother alone and picked up a handgun belonging to Kip that Florence had found in the son’s bedroom the previous day, the affidavit said. The two men "grappled" over the gun, and when Kip Orton tried to take the gun away from his father, the weapon fired and the son fell to the floor, the affidavit said.
Kip Orton got up and went to the Hauula Fire Station, where paramedics treated him and took him to Queen’s.
Kenneth Orton, whom the affidavit described as legally blind, was arrested by police at home shortly after the incident but was later released.
Florence Orton told police she had found the gun the previous day as she was cleaning her son’s room and had asked her husband to turn it over to police.
Kip Orton is being held at Oahu Community Correctional Center on $100,000 bail.
Kenneth Orton is also the father of Rik Mikio Orton, a former police officer who was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court to 30 months in federal prison on a firearms charge.
