Big Isle police grieve as service set for slain officer
A memorial service for slain Hawaii island police officer Bronson K. Kaliloa has been set for Aug. 4 at Ballard Family Mortuary in Hilo.
The 46-year-old police officer was gunned down Tuesday night during a traffic stop on Highway 11 in Mountain View. The suspect in the shooting, Justin Waiki, was killed Friday in a shootout at a police checkpoint at South Point in the Kau district.
Kaliloa, who joined the Hawaii Police Department in 2008, is the first Big Island police officer shot and killed in the line of duty. Honored as Puna patrol officer of the year in 2014, he is survived by his wife and three children and his parents. The memorial service will start at 10 a.m., following visitation at 9 a.m.
Malcolm Lutu, president of the State of Hawaii Police Officers Union, said Big Island police officers have endured a lot in the past few months with the ongoing response to the Kilauea eruption in Lower Puna and last week’s violent death of a fellow officer and the four-day manhunt for his killer.
“I know the officers haven’t had a time to grieve,” Lutu said Saturday. “It’s really important for them to decompress.”
Hawaii island police released little information Saturday on the four people who were riding with Waiki in a Toyota 4Runner when he was shot dead after opening fire on police at the roadblock, or whether the two people arrested Thursday following separate shooting incidents in Kailua-Kona may have had a connection to him.
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A 35-year-old woman who reportedly was hiding with Waiki in the vehicle remained at the Hilo Medical Center Saturday recovering from a gunshot wound to the leg and a broken femur, police said.
An HPD special response team sergeant who was shot in the upper torso and right arm and hand during the incident was in stable condition at the hospital, police said.
The three other people in the 4Runner were arrested on suspicion of first-degree hindering prosecution and remained in custody Saturday. They had yet to be charged.
Police said the vehicle was registered to the parents of a female passenger. A .38-caliber revolver that police said Waiki used to kill Kaliloa was recovered. The gun was reported stolen from a home in March, police said.
Investigators are still piecing together who may have assisted or sheltered Waiki while he was on the run.
Waiki had a criminal record of 37 arrests and 16 convictions, including felonies for drugs, forgery and ownership or possession of a prohibited firearm. Court records from 2008 said Waiki was a carpenter with a wife and two children.
Crimestoppers, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the FBI had pledged a combined $32,000 for information leading to his capture. Police were tipped off to the suspect’s whereabouts but there was no word Saturday on whether anyone had come forward to claim the reward.
Police had received a separate tip Thursday that Waiki might be in a Toyota pickup truck in Kailua-Kona. When officers approached the vehicle at Kahaluu Housing, the driver allegedly sped toward police officers, who fired three shots at the truck, which continued to flee toward Alii Drive. When the truck took aim at police on Napoopoo Road, a second officer fired 10 shots to no avail.
The vehicle, which had been reported stolen from Hilo that day, was eventually abandoned in a coffee field in Honaunau and the male and female suspects, both 25, were arrested a short while later. Charges are pending.