Police gunfire kills suspect after Wai'anae chase

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer

A high-speed chase and a gunfight in the streets of Wai'anae yesterday afternoon left a man dead.

Police investigators converge on the scene of a shooting on Old Government Road in Wai'anae. The van at left was involved in the exchange of gunfire between a man and police that left the man dead. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

Late last night, neither the man killed by police nor the officers had been identified. The officers were treated at the Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, officials said.

Police said the man, who was in a white van, fired a shotgun at officers, who returned fire, killing him. He had two women in the van with him when he was killed, police said. It was not clear if they had been abducted.

"I've lived here 22 years and this is one of the most serious, critical incidents I have ever seen. It's all drugs, I think," said 44-year-old Leonard No of Wai'anae.

Taulada Tuiono, 43, lives a short distance from where the shooting took place near the intersection of Old Government Road and Mill Street. "I heard the guns shoot. I heard over 15 shots. At first I thought it was fireworks."

Then he said he heard a woman screaming. "I saw the man lying on the ground. He was still alive because I saw his head moving."

EMS personnel said the suspect died of multiple gunshot wounds.

The shooting occurred at about 5:30 p.m., said Frances Salmon, 41, a Wai'anae resident. "The shooting wasn't anything," he said. "It was the chaos before the shooting that was really something."

Witnesses said the man was speeding recklessly and ramming into cars along Old Government Road, Mill Street and Farrington Highway in a green Neon and then in a white van for more than an hour, as police tried to apprehend him.

"It went on for a long time," Salmon said. "It was pretty nuts, the innocent bystanders were worried for their safety, they were hiding behind trees and telephone poles. They were ready to throw bricks through his car windows, but he was going too fast."

Witnesses estimated the man's speed as high as 80 mph during parts of the chase. They said at one point the police halted their pursuit.

"The cops said they didn't want to chase him because it was too dangerous," Salmon said. "Only when he jumped into the van, that's when they saw the shotgun."

At about 10 p.m. last night, Deputy Chief Paul Putzulu issued this statement at the scene:

"The suspect was seen operating a stolen vehicle, (the green car) earlier this afternoon. I know that he was involved in a couple of accidents. No one was injured in those accidents. There was a short pursuit, but it was stopped because of the situation. We lost sight of him, we don't know where he went. Later on he apparently got into the van somewhere in Makaha (after abandoning the green car.)

"There had been several calls to the station about him being in the van. We had word that he was coming down Old Government Road. There were two female occupants in the van. There was a female driver, as I understand it. He apparently got into the driver's seat and fired a couple of rounds at our officers with a shotgun. So he fired, and we fired back, and subsequently he was killed."

Kelvin Seda, a homeless man who lives in a van at the Wai'anae Boat Harbor, said he had seen the man Friday and saw the shotgun in the green Neon. Seda said that on Friday the man was at the boat harbor and borrowed a screwdriver from him. He said the man was very agitated and appeared to be high on drugs at the time. The man had a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun in his car, Seda said.

Then yesterday, Seda said he saw the same green Neon roaring up and down Farrington at a high speed, with one of its sides smashed in.

He said he informed officers at the scene that the man in the car was armed.

Last night at 9 o'clock, a crowd was gathered in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven store on Farrington near the scene. The gunman's body was covered on the ground near the white van at Old Government Road and Mill Street.

"He shot at the officers, and they had to shoot back," Seda said.

Reach Will Hoover at 525-8038 or at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.