Honolulu police cut down brush behind a Kapuai Place home Saturday near Sunset Beach to negotiate with a 32-year-old man who was later shot and killed.
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A 32-year-old man was shot and killed by Honolulu police early Saturday morning after he began stabbing a police dog with an arrow near the end of a seven-hour standoff on Oahu’s North Shore.
The man, who police did not immediately identify, was shot three times at about 3 a.m. and died at a hospital, said Honolulu Police Department Chief Susan Ballard at a news conference at police headquarters.
Neighbors said the incident began with an argument over a utility bill between the man and other tenants at a multi-unit Kapuai Place home. The man lived alone in a ground floor unit at the back of the house near Sunset Beach.
Police first responded to the home at about 6 p.m. Friday to check on an argument involving an agitated male, Ballard said.
Officers were able to calm the man down and left the scene.
Officers went back to the home about 8 p.m. for a second call involving the same man and found him agitated and delusional and threatening his neighbors, Ballard said.
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A police psychologist approved the man for a mental health evaluation, but when he refused to come out of the house, police dispatched a Specialized Services Division team for a situation involving a person holed up in a structure.
Ballard said the man repeatedly came to his door and was seen with multiple knives and a bow and arrow, and he continued to make menacing remarks toward his neighbors and threatened to hurt himself.
At one point, police shot him with a stun gun after he came to his open patio door with a knife in his hand and ignored police commands to drop the weapon. The man went back into his home.
Ballard said police tried to talk to him for several hours and even used tear gas to try to drive him from his home.
Police eventually moved in when the man came out his home with a bow and arrow, and officers released a police dog when he tried to go back inside.
When the man began stabbing the dog with an arrow, an SSD officer fired three rounds fearing for the safety of the dog and nearby officers, Ballard said.
Paramedics treated the man and took him to a hospital in critical condition before he died.
The dog, named Zero, was taken to a hospital where it underwent surgery and is expected to fully recover, Ballard said. She said the dog’s protective vest may have helped save its life.
The officer who shot the man has 25 years of service and was placed on administrative leave, as part of standard police policy.
One neighbor said he believed police could have done more to help the situation end peacefully. The neighbor, who did not want to give his name, said he thought police were initially too aggressive and should have taken more time trying to calm the man.
“I think this guy was defending himself,” he said. “Nobody was being hurt. He was in his room so they had time to assess the situation better.”
He said his neighbor was a “nice guy” who told him he was in the U.S. Air Force for about 10 years and was attending University of Phoenix to become a priest. A university spokeswoman, however, said the university doesn’t offer a clerical program.
The neighbor said when police arrived the second time at about 8 p.m., he heard officers provoking the man, calling him a “coward” and “delinquent,” and telling him to come out of the house to talk. The man responded by calling police “satan worshippers,” he said.
He said police toned down their approach after the department’s SSD team arrived, but the use of bullhorns to talk to the man and machines to cut down brush behind the man’s fence, probably aggravated the situation.
Laura Parsons, who lives next door to the house where the man was shot, commended the police response.
She said she returned home at about 8 p.m. and never heard police provoking the man. She said police called him by his name, Steven, and told him that they wanted to help him and asked him to put down everything and come out of the house.
“They were really kind words,” she said. “They were trying really hard.”
Saturday’s shooting was the second fatal Honolulu police shooting this month.
On June 1, a patrol officer shot Renie Cablay, 55, after he lunged at the officer with a knife while in his apartment in Waipahu.
Correction: This story has been updated to show that University of Phoenix says it doesn’t offer a clerical program.