Editorial: More shootings, more concerns

It has been a serious and somber week for the Honolulu Police Department, which, in two separate incidents within 24 hours, shot and killed one man and critically injured another. The incidents — plus the shooting death at the state Capitol involving state sheriff’s deputies (see item below) — highlight the imperative for top-notch officer training in split-second decision-making that leaves little room for error. These are, clearly, life-or-death consequences.

On Thursday afternoon, police shot and critically injured a suspect outside his Waikele home, just hours after he apparently fired a shot in and set fire to a Kakaako business, having gone there looking for a former female employee.

That came on the heels of Wednesday night’s shooting in Mililani, where a shoplifting suspect was killed by two plainclothes officers after allegedly driving his pickup truck toward one officer after being boxed in by the officers’ unmarked cars. Two of the suspect’s passengers also were critically injured after the truck hit a tree.

HPD Chief Susan Ballard said the suspect was ordered repeatedly to exit the truck. “If the driver of the car — the suspect — had just listened to the orders of the officer, there would have been no danger,” Ballard said, and she’s likely right.

Still, all this happened at a well-traveled residential intersection. HPD is investigating the incident, and the public will need to know exactly what transpired and be assured that protocols were followed, in this turn of events that started as a shoplifting incident and ended with a dead suspect.

In a larger context, HPD is in the process of outfitting more officers with body cameras. Having more “eyes” on incidents such as these, hopefully, will provide the public a clearer picture of what happened.