By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer
Just hours after Honolulu police officers gunned down a suspected killer at Ala Moana Center, a second man was shot and wounded by a police officer early yesterday in Mililani.
The man, described only as a 34-year-old Honolulu resident, was shot once in the neck.
He was listed in guarded condition yesterday at the Queen’s Medical Center.
The Mililani incident began at about 2:30 a.m. when a man called police and said another man had threatened him with a gun and demanded money at the Mililani Town Center. The man who called the police said the man who threatened him said he would return to the shopping center in an hour to collect the money, Police Chief Lee Donohue said yesterday.
An officer was sent to the center to investigate, and about an hour later saw a man ride into the center’s parking lot on a motorcycle. The officer ran a check on the motorcycle’s license plate and learned that the vehicle was reported stolen.
As the officer approached the man, however, he sped away toward Mililani Mauka. Donohue said the officer chased the fleeing suspect.
The officer wound up at a dark construction site at the end of Meheula Parkway, where he saw the motorcycle down on its side. As he left his car, the officer said he saw the man crouched behind a mound and that he appeared to be reaching for something in a bag.
At that moment, Donohue said, the officer fired a single shot, which hit the man in the neck and then lodged in his shoulder. The officer was not injured.
No weapon was found at the site, but Donohue said yesterday that the department was seeking a search warrant to look into the man’s fanny pack.
Donohue did say that the man has a theft conviction, although he did not have details of that case. He could not comment on whether the officer was justified in firing. The officer, 29, has been with the department for nine years and was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
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