A 24-year-old suspected burglar and convicted sex offender was in serious condition Wednesday after a Honolulu police officer shot him when he raised a firearm at a hotel near Honolulu Airport, police said.
Shortly after noon, the man was shot while police were trying to arrest him for investigation of a home burglary and warrants, said Capt. Keith Horikawa, acting major of the Honolulu Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division. He said the officer fired two rounds and hit the man once, but did not say where the man was wounded.
The incident happened in the courtyard of Pacific Marina Inn on Waiwai Loop near Keehi Lagoon Beach Park.
Rudy Figueroa, a Venetian blind maker who works in the area, said he finished his lunch in the hotel’s courtyard and was walking away when he heard shouting. He turned to see what was happening and saw taxicab drivers running out to the street. He said he saw the suspect running in his direction, and he heard someone shout, “Stop!” and then two gunshots.
“It happened so quick,” Figueroa said.
Not knowing police were present, Figueroa sprinted back to his shop next door and finished work early, shaken by the incident.
“I don’t want to go through that again,” he said. “That was real frightening, that close for hearing gunshots.”
He said he heard from others at the scene that the man had been shot in the stomach.
Horikawa said the police wanted to arrest the man because of the criminal investigation and because he was a danger to the community. He said the man is supposed to be sentenced in April for three felony sexual assault cases and a robbery.
Kalihi patrol officers went to the hotel after receiving information that the suspect was there and saw the vehicle he was driving in the parking lot, Horikawa said. Officers saw the man walking down the stairs and tried to approach him, but he fled. At some point, the man raised a semi-automatic pistol, and one of the officers fired his weapon two times, Horikawa said.
Police recovered the suspect’s handgun and determined it had been stolen.
Police opened cases for first-degree attempted murder and a firearm offense. Police are also conducting an administrative investigation.
The suspect, whom police did not identify, was taken to a hospital where he was in serious condition Wednesday.
Horikawa said the officer who fired his weapon has six years’ service with HPD and will be placed on three days’ administrative leave as part of standard policy for investigations of police shootings.
Sarah Yoro, HPD spokeswoman, said the suspect was being detained at the hospital Wednesday, and had not yet been arrested.
The last police-involved shooting in Honolulu was near Dole Middle School in Kalihi in September. An officer fired his weapon after a man wielding a shotgun opened fire. The Honolulu medical examiner’s office said the man died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.