POLICE BEAT
One dead after gunfire erupts in Makaha
By Will Hoover and Mary Vorsino
Advertiser Staff Writers
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MAKAHA — One man was shot to death, one man was arrested and several others fled the scene in an early morning gunfight yesterday that appeared to be a botched robbery of a cockfighting operation, police said.
"It appears someone was there to rip them off," said Honolulu police Lt. Eric Yu, of the Criminal Investigation Division.
"Cockfighting was going on there. Both sides had weapons."
The man who was arrested told police he fired in self-defense.
Wai'anae police who arrived at 85-126 Mai'u'u Road shortly after 6:30 a.m. found a 28-year-old man lying in a pool of blood at the far end of a gravel drive next to the house. The man, identified as Jason H. Sylva, had been shot in the "upper torso," said police homicide detective Lt. Bill Kato. Sylva was pronounced dead at the Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center.
Court records show Sylva had multiple convictions, including assault and theft. He also had been charged in October with robbery, burglary and kidnapping in connection with a Moanalua home invasion.
After the shooting yesterday, police arrested a 55-year-old man, an occupant of the home on Mai'u'u Road, on suspicion of second-degree murder. Police arrested him inside his home. The man told police he fired at Sylva and the other men in self-defense.
Police were searching last night for other suspects who fled the scene.
Kato said three to four men, including Sylva, drove up to the house early yesterday morning and began pounding on the front door.
Police did not say whether words were exchanged between the men and the occupants of the home. But shortly after 6:30 a.m., neighbors on Mai'u'u Road were awakened by gunfire.
"I heard four or five gunshots," said Momi Peters, who lives two houses away and watched three men flee the scene. "One of them had the gun. They were looking back before they got in the car."
Peters said the men didn't leave immediately, but continued to look toward the end of the gravel driveway — where Sylva lay on the ground.
She said the men eventually drove away in a tan, four-door sedan, heading in a northeasterly direction, away from the intersection of Mai'u'u Road and Farrington Highway. About a quarter of a mile down the road the getaway car stopped, one man jumped out and climbed into another awaiting vehicle, she said.
Both vehicles then sped away.
"I'm very scared," Peters said, adding she has lived in the house for 12 years and has never seen anything like this happen on her street before. "I'm still shaking. This kind of stuff that you only see in the movies or the news, you never think it would happen in your own neighborhood."
Peters said the 55-year-old man who was arrested and a woman in her 30s live in the mustard-colored house where the shootout took place.
The couple moved in about a year ago, and neighbors said they are quiet and keep to themselves. Peters said she rarely sees them. During the gunfight, the woman fled to another home, they said.
Peters said she never suspected there was a cockfighting operation at the home.
"We hear them (the roosters) making their noise and stuff," she said. "But that's about it."
Michael Kala, who lives nearby, said he also heard the gunshots and thought they might be fireworks. Now, he said, he fears for the safety of his young nieces and nephews who live and play in the neighborhood.
"Nothing like this has happened here before," Kala said.
"I worry about it, especially with kids around."
Patty Teruya, chairwoman of the Wai'anae Coast Neighborhood Board, said the shootout shows how cockfighting operations spur other crimes in the community. "It's illegal gambling," she said. "It brings that caliber of people in."
Teruya said cockfighting is rampant on the Leeward Coast — as it is elsewhere on O'ahu — and she urged residents to turn in suspected cockfighting houses.
Teruya said she has already reported several on the Leeward Coast.
"These kinds of things escalate crime," she said. "Now you got somebody who gets killed."
Kato said yesterday afternoon that police were trying to recover weapons used in the shooting. Homicide detectives were set to search the home where the shooting occurred last night, he said.
Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com and Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.
