On June 17, 20-year HPD veteran and CRU officer Ermie Barroga Jr., 44, was shot twice, once in the arm and also at the base of the skull, when cornered fugitive Gordon Morse tried to shoot his way out of a standoff with police in Kalihi. Morse was shot and killed by police.

Less than six months later, on Dec. 2, another member of Kalihi's CRU, officer Jeffrey K. Omai, 35, was critically injured when a fugitive allegedly ran him over with a stolen van while Omai and other CRU members were attempting to serve an arrest warrant.

"They have to separate this kind of stuff and do their job without losing touch with their humanistic side," said Chun. "The last two incidents, in all my years with this unit, I've never had one, let alone two incidents like this in the same year."

Omai is still hospitalized in critical but stable condition, police said.

Of the more than 2,000 Hono-lulu police officers, 250 have suffered injuries while on duty this year. One, officer Isaac Veal, was killed in a car accident while responding to an emergency call. There are at least 24 and sometimes as many as 36 officers injured every month in the line of duty.

Those injuries vary in severity from gunshot wounds to cuts and bruises sustained in scuffles with suspects.

Despite the dangers of the job, police say that there is a strong desire to get back to work after being injured and out of commission for a while. Much of that eager anticipation is generated by the close, fraternal atmosphere that surrounds most law enforcement departments, police said.

Barroga said that while getting shot kept him at home for a while and forced him to take a long hard look at his life, it didn't deter him from continuing his work as a CRU officer.

"It (the possibility of being shot) is always in the back of your mind but you don't think about it because you have to do your job," he said yesterday.

It took more than three months for Barroga to complete his rehabilitation and return to active duty. He remembers the dull thud in his left arm the first time he was shot while trying to arrest Morse in June.

He recalls turning a corner in the Mayor Wright Housing project and coming face to face with Morse, wanted at the time by police for dragging another officer with a car on Round Top Drive. Barroga ordered Morse to put his hands up.

"In a split second, shots started going already," said Barroga, 44. "All time was suspended."

Barroga remembers lifting up his shirt and seeing the bone in his arm. He said he blacked out after Morse shot him again at the base of his skull.

"Going into a hot situation, I'd be lying if I said you're not scared," he said. "You want to come back to work (after being shot) and see the unit."

On Sept. 16, officer Kevin Bailey was critically injured when his Ford Explorer struck a car that had turned in front of him in Wailupe.

Police said Bailey, 39, was on duty and traveling toward Honolulu near Wailupe when a Honda made a left turn in front of the officer's oncoming sport utility vehicle at Ka'ai Street.

Bailey swerved his Ford Explorer to avoid the car, but struck it, then slammed into a concrete wall, police traffic investigators said. The Explorer rolled, coming to rest on its side. The wreck occurred just after midnight.

Bailey, who was wearing a seat belt, was pinned in the Explorer with head and internal injuries until firefighters could get him out.

HPD tracks the number of injured officers by keeping tabs on the number of workers' compensation claims filed with the city. According to the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, the city stopped separating HPD's worker's compensation claims from all other city employee claims in 1999.

In 1998, the last year that HPD's claims were organized into its own category, the city paid out about $3.3 million in claim money to cover 696 HPD claims, both officer and civilian, not all of which had been filed in 1998. That year, city workers were paid a total of $9,902,072 to cover 2,061 claims.

Starting in 1999, HPD claims were lumped in with city employees, making it difficult to track exactly how much HPD officers receive in worker's comp claims a year, state officials said.

On average, every year HPD's Human Resources Division handles between 200 and 250 worker's compensation claims, said Maj. Dave Kajihiro, head of the division. On the Neighbor Islands in 2003, Maui County paid out $498,777 to cover 121 police worker's compensation claims; Hawai'i County paid $943,603 to cover 138 claims; and Kauai County paid $222,554 to cover 58 claims.

Kajihiro said there are many reasons why HPD files so many claims, the heart of which is the nature of police work.

"Due to the arrests we have to make not every one cooperates," Kajihiro said. "At times we have to respond to fires, officers are overcome by smoke. Officers in narcotics/vice, they come across a drug lab and they are exposed to unknown chemicals, we have to file (a claim)."

Kajihiro also said that patrol officers, who spend the majority of their days in cars driving around, have a high probability of getting injured.

In severe cases, including death and critical injury, HPD has a system in place to help officers deal with the trauma that can result from tragic situations.

The department has a peer support group, consisting of other HPD officers, that immediately mobilizes and meets with officers involved in and close to an incident. In the event of fatalities, HPD maintains a chaplain corps that meets with officers and attempts to put the tragedy into context.

In addition, a departmental physchologist is available to help officers with counseling and other mental health services.