Phillips said the shooting was justified because citizens were in danger and so was the officer, who was attacked and "debilitated" when Charles Benson Ogden, 48, sprayed a powerful chemical agent designed to repel bears.

Phillips said he doesn’t expect prosecutors to file charges against the officer.

In a news conference, Phillips said the officer fired perhaps six shots at Ogden who, in spite of repeated commands to stop, continued to advance toward the officer spraying the pepper spray. Four of the shots hit Ogden, a former Oklahoma resident believed to have been camping in the area.

The officer, whose name was not released, was responding to a report of a man who was exposing himself, Phillips said.

A witness to the confrontation between Ogden and the police officer intervened but also got sprayed by Ogden, who was wielding a 9.2-ounce can of pepper spray capable of shooting 30 feet, Phillips said.

The officer positioned himself between the citizen and Ogden and commanded him to stop. Instead, Ogden sprayed the officer and that’s when he fired two or three shots, hitting the man in the wrist, Phillips said.

The officer went to the ocean to wash out his eyes, he said, but the salt water only made his condition worse. Nevertheless, the officer noticed that Ogden got back on his feet and repositioned himself between the suspect and the citizen. Ogden continued to spray, and three or four more shots were fired by the officer, hitting the suspect in the side and back, mortally wounding the man.

Phillips said the officer, whose vision was reduced to seeing silhouettes, was careful about shooting toward the ocean where he knew no one else would get hurt.

Phillips said one witness said it looked like the suspect was trying to pull something out of his backpack during the confrontation. Investigators later found a pair of scissors and a filet knife with a six-inch blade in the backpack.

It was the fourth shooting involving Maui police in seven months and the second fatal shooting in less than six weeks. On Jan. 23, a patrol officer shot a woman in the head as she was trying to flee in a stolen car in Pa'ia.

Phillips denied his department was using excessive force.

"I don’t think we’re trigger happy," he said. "We have to have the right to protect ourselves."

Phillips said the number of Maui arrests and assaults against police officers has risen in recent years.