Police explain Maui shooting
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau
WAILUKU, Maui — Maui Police Chief Thomas Phillips yesterday said a police officer who shot and killed a man on a Kihei beach Sunday fired six shots at the man in two separate volleys.
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 at him that was designed to repel bears.
Phillips said the investigation into the shooting is continuing, but he doesn't expect prosecutors to file charges against the officer.
Meanwhile, Ogden's mother yesterday said she wasn't surprised her son, a former Marine who grew up in Oklahoma, died in a confrontation with police. She said he had a bad temper and was in and out of trouble with the law.
"I'm sad that it happened, but I'm really not that surprised," said Eula Ogden of Porum, Okla.
In a news conference at the Wailuku police headquarters, Phillips said the officer fired his Glock 40-caliber semiautomatic pistol at Ogden, who ignored repeated commands to stop and continued to advance toward the officer while spraying the pepper spray. Four of the shots, fired from five to seven feet away, hit Ogden, who was believed to have been camping in the area.
The officer, whose name was not released, had been called to the area after a report of indecent exposure at Waiohuli Beach near the Lipoa Street access in Kihei.
Ogden reportedly had been sitting on the beach, exposing his genitals by wearing loose shorts and no underwear. When a woman approached Ogden to complain, he pulled his shorts down.
When the officer arrived, Ogden began walking away at a fast pace. Phillips said a witness who saw the officer pursuing the suspect intervened but got sprayed by Ogden, who was wielding a 9.2-ounce can of "Pepper Power" spray that has a range of 30 feet.
The officer hurried to position himself between the man and Ogden and commanded the suspect to stop. Instead, Ogden sprayed the officer and that's when he fired two or three shots, hitting the suspect with one bullet in the right forearm and knocking him to the ground, Phillips said.
The officer went to the ocean to wash out his eyes, he said, but the salt water only made it worse. Nevertheless, the officer noticed that Ogden had gotten back on his feet, so he repositioned himself between Ogden and the man who had tried to help. Ogden continued to spray, and three or four more shots were fired by the officer, hitting the suspect in the 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.
The 32-year-old officer, a Maui Police Department veteran of nearly 10 years, tried to use his department-issued pepper spray, the chief said, but it was ineffective in the face of the more powerful bear repellent. When investigators arrived on the scene, the officer was still suffering from chemical burns to the face and eyes, and he was treated at Maui Memorial Medical Center.
A witness told police 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.
Lt. Glenn Cuomo of the Maui Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division said information about the incident came from three witnesses, two of them who knew nothing of the report about Ogden exposing himself.
Dr. Anthony Manoukian, Maui County medical examiner, said the first bullet passed through Ogden's right forearm. The three other bullets entered his back, severing the man's spinal cord and shattering his shoulder blade. The trajectory of the wounds was consistent with witness accounts of a shooter fending off someone trying to hold a spray can, he said.
Manoukian said preliminary testing shows no alcohol or drugs in Ogden's system, except for marijuana, although it is uncertain whether the dead man was under the influence of marijuana at the time of the shooting.
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 yesterday 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 assaults against police officers and arrests of suspects is on the rise.
"It's pretty scary out there. I'm thankful that there aren't more incidents like this. I think my officers show great restraint," he said.
Speaking in a phone call from Oklahoma, Eula Ogden said her son "Ben" was "a very good little boy" who enjoyed fishing while growing up on the family farm in Porum. He joined the Marines and served in Hawai'i, where he fell in love with the weather.
For years, she said, he had been a "heartache" for his parents because of the way he was living. One of four siblings, he rejected his parents' offer of land in Oklahoma to build a house and instead chose to live on the beach in Hawai'i, surviving on odd jobs and a veteran's disability check for a mental problem, she said.
Odgen had three petty misdemeanor convictions on the Big Island in the 1980s.
He returned to Oklahoma for a few days at a time about once a year. He never married or had children or wanted to settle down.
"Ben was just different," Eula Odgen. "He lived a different life, and I really couldn't accept it. He could have lived a different life, but there wasn't any talking him out of it."
She said she feels bad, not only for her son, but for the officer and the citizen who were doused with pepper spray.
"It still hurts to think he would do such a thing. It shouldn't have happened. I wouldn't blame the officer at all. I just hope no one got too hurt," she said.
Maui police are continuing to conduct criminal and internal investigations into both Sunday's incident and the Pa'ia shooting in January. In both cases, it will be up to county prosecutors to determine whether criminal charges are brought against the officer.
Maui County Prosecutor Davelynn Tengan said she doesn't think an independent investigation into police shootings is necessarily warranted.
"I don't think it's a problem. We have prosecuted officers before (using evidence gathered by police)," she said.
"We've never had any reason to feel the reports were incomplete."
In any case, she said prosecutors are prepared to do extra investigative work if needed or if witnesses are reluctant to talk with police.
Reach Timothy Hurley at thurley@honoluluadvertiser or (808) 244-4880.
