Police offered no information on a possible motive or who the intended targets were of a shooting late Thursday morning off a busy Makiki street that injured an adult and a 1-year-old boy with shattered glass.
Several bullets struck two vehicles in a parking lot at the rear of a small two-story retail building at the corner of Pensacola and Young streets — an unoccupied silver Lexus and a dark Ford Explorer with three adults and two children inside.
At a news conference at police headquarters Thursday afternoon, Criminal Investigation Division Capt. Gail Beckley offered photos taken from surveillance video, which shows two male persons of interest, one riding a bicycle and the other walking, in connection with the shooting.
She asked the public to call 911 and not to approach if they spot the persons of interest.
Detectives opened up a first-degree attempted murder case, saying the victims include two men, ages 34 and 42, and a woman, 59, and children ages 8 months and 1 year.
Beckley could not confirm whether the two vehicles were being targeted or whether a fight preceded the shooting as some people reported.
Although they were parked to the rear of the building, they were clearly in the line of sight from the sidewalk.
Investigators were still sorting out conflicting reports late Thursday afternoon, Honolulu Police Department spokeswoman Michelle Yu said.
Beckley did not have any information as to why Crime Reduction Unit officers were on scene during the investigation.
Plainclothes CRU officers were present while three teenage boys filled out police reports at the scene of the shooting. One held something over his right eye, apparently to relieve the pain.
Hairstylist Phiya “Lai” Hoffman at M &B Salon said that when he and his co-workers saw “high school kids fighting” outside the salon, “we locked the door.”
They then heard the “boom, boom” of gunshots, calling the events “scary,” Hoffman said.
He said his customer, an older woman who came in the silver Lexus, had to stay inside the shop until investigators released the crime scene at 2:30 p.m. and removed the yellow crime scene tape.
Hoffman said the Explorer’s owner had just gone next door to pay his phone bill.
The owner of the corner store Hula Mart said she heard the shooting. “We came out but they took off already,” she said, declining to give her name. “The kids — big kids — were outside fighting. I guess they can’t stand each other.”
Kaimi Cabacungan, 26,
a Kaiser Permanente employee, said he was working inside the building directly across Pensacola Street from the crime scene.
Just after 11:10 a.m., “people were running in saying, ‘Shooting! Shooting! Shooting!’ So we just locked the door,” he said. He said a patient had video showing two groups of men in their 20s fighting.
Area resident Terry
Hoshiko said he heard what he initially thought were firecrackers. “And then I looked out the window, and that’s when I saw these two guys running real fast.”
Hoshiko said he then saw a male chasing after them.
“He was really upset, screaming,” he added.
“And pretty soon the cop cars started coming from everywhere.”
A silver Lexus LS340 with what appeared to be six bullet holes in the rear window was behind police tape at the scene. Police were examining the Lexus parked in the building’s small parking lot.
Honolulu firefighters and Emergency Medical Services personnel also responded; paramedics treated the child and took him in stable condition to a hospital.
Yu said there were no
reports of any gunshot
victims.
An attendant at the Big Brothers Big Sisters donation center in the Walgreens parking lot said he saw two men in their 20s who came by and looked inside the donation container shortly before the shooting. He said he heard six or seven shots fired.
Kaiser Permanente said in a written statement, “To ensure the safety of our patients and staff, our Honolulu Medical Office was under temporary lockdown due to the police activity in the vicinity. After the facility was deemed safe, operations returned to normal.”
McKinley High and Queen Kaahumanu Elementary schools were temporarily placed on lockdown as a precaution while police investigated, according to Lindsay Chambers, a state Department of Education spokeswoman.