A 31-year-old father of three died Tuesday after he shot himself with a shotgun following a police pursuit from Kapolei to Kalihi, forcing Dole Middle School into a brief lockdown.
Neighbors identified the man as Mose Mose of Kalihi and said he was fatally injured in front of his family’s home in his black Ford Mustang in the middle of Kamehameha IV Road.
Honolulu police Maj. Larry Lawson said the incident began at about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday when Mose’s family reported him distraught and possibly armed with a weapon.
Officers spotted Mose at about 2:15 p.m. near Honokai Hale in Kapolei, where he made a U-turn and began heading toward town, and saw him brandishing a firearm.
Lawson said officers pursued him to Kalihi, where Mose stopped on Kamehameha IV Road near Kino Street at about 2:45 p.m. Officers got out of their vehicles and surrounded Mose’s car, and two shots were fired — one by Mose and one by an officer.
Lawson said he didn’t know which shot killed Mose. No one else was hurt.
But a source said Mose shot himself in the chest with the shotgun and that an officer fired a weapon in response.
Mose died shortly afterward at the Queen’s Medical Center.
A police spokeswoman said the officer who fired the shot is a 14-year police veteran from the Waianae district.
The source said Mose was seen pointing his gun out his car window at other drivers.
The source said Mose stopped his car in front of his parents’ house and was telling someone outside his car that he wanted to be able see his children.
The shooting occurred about halfway through the last class period at Dole, putting the school into lockdown for about 20 minutes.
One sixth-grader, who gave her name as Myles, said people were screaming when the school went into lockdown, and she became scared when she heard the principal’s voice getting “shaky” during an announcement that the lockdown wasn’t a drill.
Owenson Niro, a seventh-grader at Dole, said he saw Mose’s Mustang pull up and officers get out of their cars with weapons drawn. He told the staff what he was seeing, and they ushered him and other children into a bathroom for the lockdown. Niro then heard about three gunshots.
“I was pretty scared,” Niro said.
The Department of Education said additional counselors would be at the school today to help students troubled by Tuesday’s shooting.
Neighbors said Mose had three children under age 10. They said Mose and his wife were having problems and that she had taken their children to live in Waianae. Mose’s family declined to comment.
One resident, who declined to be identified, described Mose as nice and “very friendly.”
He said Mose introduced himself when the family moved in about a decade ago and would always say hello. Mose moved out years ago to live with his wife.
The neighbor, who was home at the time of the shooting, said he heard a single loud bang and thought it was construction workers dropping a steel plate on the road.
He looked outside and saw officers, with weapons drawn, surrounding Mose’s car and pulling him out.
“To me, at that point, I thought he was dead already,” he said. “He was bloody and he wasn’t moving.
“It’s just sad,” he added. “Very unfortunate.”
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Star-Advertiser reporter Nanea Kalani contributed to this report.
