Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard said two officers feared for their lives Monday morning and had to jump out of the way of a Jeep driven by a 45-year-old man in Ahuimanu just before fatally shooting him.

Crime Reduction Unit officers from the Kaneohe District (District 4) attempted to serve the man with a retake warrant at 11:30 a.m. at the Hookipa Kahaluu, a state public housing project at 47-330 Ahuimanu Road.

Ballard said the officers fired four to six shots at the man, who allegedly accelerated the Jeep toward them at a high rate of speed, leaving skid marks in the parking lot.

At least two rounds were fired through the windshield, and one went into the hood, according to a witness at the scene who arrived after the shooting.

The man had 48 convictions, including 12 felonies ranging from kidnapping to drug and firearm offenses, 14 misdemeanors and 22 petty misdemeanors, Ballard said.

Ballard said the man is a suspect in a kidnapping case, but did not disclose details of it, saying it remained under investigation.

Patrol officers spotted the suspect’s vehicle wanted in connection with the kidnapping, Ballard said, and CRU officers arrived to make the arrest.

The Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office has not yet provided any details concerning the man, including his identification or any details of the death.

Ballard said the suspect was taken in critical condition to The Queen’s Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

One of the officers received a minor hand injury, she said.

The officers have 20 and eight years of experience with HPD and have been placed on three-day administrative leave as is standard HPD practice.

Shootings by police were disturbingly high in 2018 and 2019. HPD officers shot 12, killing six in 2018, and in 2019 shot eight with four fatalities.

In June, Ballard promised reforms and told the Police Commission that CRU officers will receive formal training in de-escalation of force.

“Right now they basically carry a gun,” she said then. “It goes from touch to ‘bang’ and no options in between.”

She said six months ago that CRU officers will soon be issued less-than-lethal options such as Tasers, and other officers also will receive annual de-escalation training.

Ballard said Monday that the CRU officers were not equipped with less-than-lethal options since the department is still looking into that, nor were they equipped with body-worn cameras, which have sometimes told a different story from what the police chief has described.

The Kaneohe District, along with the Traffic Division, is supposed to get the cameras in early 2021, Ballard said.

CRU officers are often called on to serve high-risk warrants such as high-bail or no-bail warrants. In this case the suspect was being served a parole retake warrant for his arrest for violating conditions of his parole.

CRU members are plainclothes officers, but Ballard said that the pair were wearing vests clearly marked “police,” had police badges hanging around their necks and verbally identified themselves when they approached the suspect, who initially fled on foot, entered the Jeep and locked the doors, refusing to get out.

Ballard said the suspect started up the Jeep, revved the engine, quickly reversed, “forcing the officers to jump out of the way,” then accelerated toward them.

The Jeep crashed into two parked cars, and the officers removed the injured man from the vehicle and started to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on him, she said.

Ballard said the entire event occurred very quickly, less than two minutes, including the foot chase, so officers had to react quickly.

Police classified the case against the dead man as an attempted murder.