Two veteran Honolulu
police officers early Thursday morning fatally shot a man who they had already fired a Taser at and who
had ignored their commands to drop a 7-inch knife, HPD Chief Susan Ballard said.
It was the 10th HPD officer-involved shooting since January and the fifth fatality.
Three HPD officers
responded to a call of a
man who had robbed
the NomNom convenience store next to the Hele
station in Kalihi just after midnight.
A witness pointed out a man who fit the description of the thief. He was across the street in the Foodland parking lot at Dillingham Plaza, carrying a bottle of
alcohol and a hunting or
diving knife.
The suspect ignored
police commands to drop the knife and “instead raised the knife and moved toward the officers,” Ballard said.
One officer with 19 years on the force fired a Taser “but it was ineffective,”
Ballard said. The Taser is equipped with a camera
and investigators are trying to determine why it did not stop the suspect, perhaps because the probes did not properly embed, Ballard said.
The unidentified suspect — who was described as
being in his 40s — “had
already refused to drop the knife and he raised the knife and he was coming towards the officer.”
Two other officers — one with 23 years of experience and another with 10 years
of service — then fired a combined 10 to 11 shots and hit the suspect multiple times in the torso and
right leg. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition, where he died, Ballard said.
The two officers who shot the suspect were put on standard administrative leave.
While Honolulu remains one of the safest big cities
in America, Ballard said,
“Honolulu is not the way it was way back when. Things are changing, just like they are on the mainland.”
On Sept. 20, Honolulu
police fatally shot a 55-year-old man at the Century
Center building in McCully
after he allegedly pointed a firearm at an officer who had entered an apartment to serve a warrant.
“The officers are doing
everything they can,” Ballard said. “They do not want to use lethal force. Unfortunately, the trend is very
disturbing out there. … People are pointing weapons,
actively pointing knives at the officers.”
The spate of HPD officer-involved shootings follows the July shooting death of Bronson Kaimana Wei Mun Kaliloa — the first Hawaii County police officer shot and killed in the line of duty.
HPD officers, Ballard
said, are “being as careful as they can. But at the same time they have to look out for their safety, as well as
the safety of the community.”
