EDITORIAL
Police shootout raises new set of questions

As with any such incident, there is more than enough trauma to go around following a Kane'ohe shootout Friday in which one man was shot and killed by police and another injured.

There are any number of questions about this incident that demand answers, not just for the information of the Police Department but for the public as well.

For starters, it appears that at least some officers were aware that a child was in the truck, but that information did not get to the officers who opened fire.

Surely, if police had known an innocent child was in the truck, they would have handled the incident differently.

Then an attorney for the second man in the truck — who was injured but not killed by the gunfire — claims the man was a kidnap victim, not an accomplice. Did police have any information at the time to suggest the second man in the truck was not there of his own volition?

In sum, the questions boil down to what did the police know and when did they know it? Was it necessary to fire 130 rounds at a truck that clearly wasn't going anywhere?

The Police Department will conduct its own investigation to determine whether procedures were properly followed in this matter. That's proper.

But at some point, the results of this investigation must be shared with the public. Continued confidence in our Police Department depends on it.