A 31-year-old man died Saturday after being shot in Aiea in an altercation apparently fueled by road rage, police said.
Honolulu Police Department spokeswoman Michelle Yu said the incident began shortly before noon when two drivers got into an
argument that was possibly traffic-related on Moanalua Road.
Witnesses reported the drivers got out of their vehicles, and that one shot the other and drove away.
The victim was taken to a hospital, where he died, Yu said. Family members identified him as Keenyn Pahio, 31, of Kalihi.
The suspect was found a short time later at his home on Heen Way, off Aiea Heights Drive, about 2 miles from the shooting.
Yu said the man had barricaded himself inside his home and police talked him into surrendering.
The suspect, a 72-year-old man, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder.
SWAT officers with canine units swarmed the lane leading to the suspect’s home, and a police helicopter hovered above.
Crime scene tape blocked Moanalua Road in front of Aiea Shopping Center, shutting down access to a nearby Wendy’s restaurant and a Flagship FastLube maintenance shop. Police closed the road for about four hours to investigate.
One woman, a naturopathic doctor who declined to give her name, said she heard the shot from inside her business at Aiea Commercial Center and stepped out to where she had a direct view of the scene from the second-story walkway.
She thought she saw a man changing a tire on a white van in the middle of the road amid heavy traffic.
“I saw a guy on his knees,” she said. “He was slumped into the van.”
She said the van then drove away and “the body just went flat on the ground.”
“That gave me a chill,” she said.
Numerous other motorists immediately went to the victim’s aid, which she said she found comforting.
She also said one good Samaritan wrapped a wound on the victim’s head and started CPR.
Dan Guerrero was working at Flagship FastLube when he heard the gunshot from the street. He thought a tire had blown and paid little attention because business was bustling.
After seeing customers staring out of the office window, he looked to the road and saw someone performing CPR on a person on the ground. People were running around, and cars were driving by while others treated the person on the ground.
“I was shocked,” he said. “I was uneasy. It looked like a movie scene.”
After police closed the road, business ground to a halt. Despite having a line of cars around the building before noon, the shop sent home four workers in the middle of the day because there were no more customers, a manager said.
The shooting was the second violent incident that reportedly involved road rage in Honolulu in less than a year.
In August, Mark Char, then 58, was charged with second-degree attempted murder after he allegedly stabbed one man and cut two others in an altercation on the H-1 freeway near Kunia. Char remained at Oahu Community Correctional Center on Saturday, awaiting trial in May.