Maui man wounded in scuffle with police

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau

KULA, Maui — Police officers shot and wounded a 25-year-old Kula man yesterday during a scuffle when the officers were trying to get him to surrender his pistol, police said.

The man was confined at Maui Memorial Medical Center in Wailuku, where he was listed as stable yesterday.

Police Lt. Jon Morioka said two officers responded to a 7:55 a.m. report of a man who had been hit on the head with a baseball bat in a vacant lot on Pueo Drive in Kula. While the officers were talking to a couple sitting in a car at the site about 20 minutes later, the man in the passenger seat reached for a handgun under his seat, Morioka said.

The officers attempted to gain control of the weapon and during the ensuing scuffle, the man was shot once in the upper right shoulder.

The officer who fired his weapon suffered a minor injury to his arm and was placed on administrative leave, a routine action when a shooting occurs, said Lt. Glenn Cuomo of the Criminal Investigation Division.