WAILUKU, Maui — A Lahaina man fatally shot Tuesday by a Maui police officer apparently was bent on dying, according to police evidence in the case.

Minutes before being felled by two bullets inside his home at 141 Leoleo St., unemployed hotel worker Romeo Butihi, 54, had asked his 19-year-old daughter to stab him with a machete, and when she refused, he fired a .22-caliber-driven nail gun into his left chest, said Lt. Glenn Cuomo of the Maui Police Department's Criminal Investigation Unit.

When that failed, Butihi urged police to shoot him as he threatened officers with a spear- gun and an air rifle that resembled a real firearm, Cuomo said.

Officers were not in a position in which they could use Tasers to disable the man with electrical shocks, Cuomo said, and they were worried he would hurt his daughter and her male friend, who had locked themselves in a bedroom. In a situation in which a suspect is armed with deadly weapons, shooting him in the leg or foot would not have reduced the danger to police and bystanders, according to Cuomo.

"I wouldn't recommend to anyone to try to use a Taser against somebody with two deadly weapons ... and we know now he had a nail in the chest and was still able to walk around," he said. "We needed to shoot to stop him."

Maui police spokesman Lt. Donald Kanemitsu at a news conference yesterday said, "It looks like a good, justified shooting."

An autopsy conducted Wednesday found that the nail gun was pressed against Butihi's left chest when Butihi fired it, sending a 1-inch nail and a cotton wad through his lung and into his back, according to medical examiner Dr. Anthony Manoukian. One of the shots fired by the police officer from a .40-caliber Glock pistol ripped through Butihi's left arm and grazed his heart and collapsed a lung before piercing his diaphragm, liver and right kidney. The other shot shattered his right elbow and severed the artery in his arm.

Manoukian said any of the three injuries would have been fatal. The autopsy also indicated Butihi had consumed alcohol, although Manoukian said a preliminary urine test could not determine just how intoxicated the man was or whether he was taking medication. That information will be available later when more thorough toxicology tests are conducted.

Cuomo said initial reports indicate Butihi was drinking heavily elsewhere in the neighborhood before he returned home and began an argument with his wife, Sharon Butihi, 51. Butihi's daughter called 911 from the bedroom at 10:26 p.m. to report that her father was "acting crazy" and had threatened her and Sharon Butihi with a machete, Kanemitsu said. The daughter said that after she had taken the machete away from Butihi, he asked her to stab him with it and then injured himself with the nail gun, he said.

While the daughter was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, Butihi reportedly said he would shoot any police officers who showed up at the house, and then she heard him cock the speargun, Kanemitsu said. The daughter told police Butihi also had a BB gun.

Four officers arrived at the house at 10:32 p.m. and led Sharon Butihi outside to safety. The exterior walls of the Leoleo Street house apparently had been built around the original home, and Butihi was inside the original part of the structure, which was accessible by a narrow, cluttered hallway. Police entered the hallway in single file, and two of the officers posted themselves outside the living room in the original part of the house, while two others watched from outside the living-room window as Butihi, armed with the spear- gun and air rifle, paced inside, urging police to shoot him, Cuomo said.

Police several times ordered Butihi to drop the weapons, he said, and when Butihi made a move toward officers at the door, one of the officers at the window fired two shots through the screen, wounding the man from 10 to 12 feet away. Butihi took a couple of steps before collapsing. He died at the scene.

Even though the daughter had told police Butihi had a BB gun, Cuomo said officers couldn't be sure the weapon wasn't a genuine rifle.

Cuomo said he is still reviewing police records to see if there had been previous trouble at the Butihi home. Butihi's criminal record includes a conviction for second-degree assault, reduced from attempted murder, for a 1981 incident in which he stabbed his previous wife 13 times with a pocket knife after he became upset that she was taking birth control pills, according to court records.

He was sentenced to a year in jail, five years of probation and a $5,000 fine.

Neighbors and family reported that Butihi sometimes used a wheelchair or a cane to walk, but Cuomo said Butihi was moving unaided during the incident.

Police have not released the name of the officer involved in the shooting. The 10-year MPD veteran has been placed on paid administrative leave while the case is investigated. That's routine in such situations, police said.

The last fatal police shooting on Maui occurred Feb. 29, 2004, when Charles B. Ogden, 48, was killed at a Kihei beach after spraying bear repellent at a police officer who was responding to a call about a man who was exposing himself to children. The officer was partially blinded by the spray and feared that Ogden had a weapon.

On Jan. 23, 2004, Lisa T. Kaina, 27, of Pukalani, was fatally shot after police cornered her in a stolen Cadillac on Baldwin Avenue in Pa'ia. She had hit several cars and tried to reverse into an officer before she was shot.

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.