A convicted felon on
Hawaii island allegedly shot a police officer in the head and arm Friday morning after an attempted arrest in Hilo, triggering an islandwide manhunt while the officer, in serious but stable condition, was airlifted to Oahu for surgery.
Hawaii Police Department officials announced shortly before noon that the suspect is Christopher Lucrisia, 39, who allegedly fired a gun into the ground in front of his 39-year-old ex-girlfriend outside her home in Mountain View early Monday morning.
Lucrisia also is accused of returning to the woman’s home Wednesday while she was out, and threatening a bedridden 75-year-old woman with a firearm, stealing a bag from her bed and threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend.
Lucrisia was still at large as of Friday evening. But 23-year-old Silas Zion of Pahoa, who police said was with Lucrisia during the shooting incident that involved at least two officers, was arrested without
incident shortly after 6 p.m. in Puna. He faces a potential charge of being an accessory to attempted first-degree murder for the shooting that hospitalized an officer.
According to Hawaii Police Chief Ben Moszkowicz, officers searching to arrest Lucrisia on Friday morning on reckless-endangering and firearm charges relating to the earlier incidents in Mountain View spotted
Lucrisia in a white Chevy pickup truck registered to Zion outside a bank near the Prince Kuhio Plaza shopping center in Hilo shortly before 11 a.m.
But as the officers wearing equipment identifying them as police approached the truck and demanded that the vehicle’s occupants not move, Lucrisia fired a gun at least twice, striking one officer, Moszkowicz said.
A second officer fired back three times, but it was not known at the time whether those shots struck Lucrisia or the truck’s driver, according to Moszkowicz.
At a Friday evening news conference, Moszkowicz said he wishes for a full recovery for the injured officer, a nine-year veteran assigned to the East Hawaii Vice Unit, and urged the suspects to surrender peacefully.
“We don’t need any more violence in this case,” he said. “Nobody else needs to be hurt. We just want to make sure justice is done, and we’ll let the criminal justice system play out.”
Moszkowicz also said that two neighbor island police departments and the state Department of Law Enforcement have
offered to help in the search if it continues
today.
Hawaii island Mayor Kimo Alameda said during the news conference that the two suspects would be found and prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.
“It’s a sad day for us here on the Big Island,” Alameda said. “But I want you to know that our Police Department is doing a really, really good job, and I commend them for their service.”
In the immediate aftermath of Friday’s shooting, police officials believed Lucrisia was on foot in a Hilo neighborhood in the vicinity of Manono and Leilani streets, and advised the public to avoid the area and contact police if they saw Lucrisia, who is described as 5 feet 10 inches tall and 250 pounds, with green eyes and black hair.
By 3 p.m. the department announced that police had completed their search of homes
in the neighborhood
and that their search had been expanded
islandwide.
Around 4 p.m., police identified Zion as the driver of the getaway pickup truck and described him as 5 feet
6 inches tall, 110 pounds, with blond hair and blue eyes.
Both men should be considered armed and extremely dangerous, Moszkowicz said, and should be reported to police and not approached if seen by the public.
The injured officer
was initially taken to Hilo Benioff Medical Center, then airlifted to Oahu and transported to The Queen’s Medical Center for surgery.
The detective who fired his firearm is a 17-year department veteran assigned to the East Hawaii Vice Unit, and has been placed on administrative leave to ensure he is mentally, emotionally and physically able to return to work, according to Moszkowicz.
