Shot officer a 20-year veteran

Advertiser Staff

Five officers have been placed on paid leave while the Police Department investigates Thursday's shooting outside a third-floor apartment at Mayor Wright Homes in Palama that left a fugitive dead and a veteran police officer with two gunshot wounds.

The five police officers have not been identified, but it is standard procedure to place officers on paid leave if they have fired their weapons in the line of duty, according to a department representative.

The wounded officer was identified by a family member as Ermie Barroga Jr., a 20-year veteran assigned to the Kalihi Crime Reduction Unit. Barroga was shot in the arm and in the back of the head, and was in fair condition yesterday at The Queen's Medical Center.

A second wounded man, identified by a female relative today as 19-year-old Manuel Kalaluhi, is recovering from his injuries and has been arrested for hindering prosecution. The woman said he was shot in the shoulder and side of the head.

Kalaluhi was standing on a ledge outside a second-floor unit in Building 33 with fugitive Gordon Morse when Morse shot at Barroga and another officer, triggering return fire from several officers standing below about 10 to 12 feet away, said a police source at the scene who did not want to be identified because of the ongoing investigation.

Police said Morse, 32, was the driver of a stolen pickup truck that dragged an officer May 21 on Round Top Drive, the first in a series of chases, carjackings and auto thefts in the Makiki area that day.

Police went to Mayor Wright Homes at about 4:50 p.m. Thursday on a CrimeStoppers tip about Morse's whereabouts.

A third man, 35-year-old Wade K. Martin, fled the unit from a back window but was captured nearby. He and Laura E. Tavares, 33, were arrested for hindering prosecution and remain in custody, police said.

Hana Sotoa Eliapo, president of the Mayor Wright Housing Community Association, said none of the suspects involved in the shootings were residents of the community and were in an apartment rented by a single woman.

Eliapo said that apartment was known for illegal activities and had been reported to management at the complex and to police.

Eliapo said people coming into the housing areas make it difficult for families to safely raise their children. The residents and association members do citizens patrols four nights a week.

"It's not perfect here, but it is getting there," Eliapo said. "Some people from outside are causing trouble."