Honolulu police were searching for a gunman suspected of killing two people and wounding three others after a cockfight at a Maili property around midnight Friday.
The shooting was reported at 12:07 a.m. Saturday. According to the Honolulu Police Department, the five victims managed to get themselves to the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, where two were later pronounced dead. Police said they were still notifying families of the deceased and did not release their names.
HPD Homicide Lt. Deena Thoemmes told reporters at a news conference Saturday that “at the end of the (cock)fight, a group of males started arguing and then it escalated into a physical altercation. At some point, gunshots were fired, hitting the five people in the immediate area.”
Thoemmes said the suspect, described as a “local male” in his 20s, “should be considered armed and dangerous.”
The shooting occurred at a property off a quiet, rural stretch of Kaukamana Road in a clearing near a chicken coop that was hidden away behind several homes. A handful of people living in the area milled around nervously Saturday morning, clearly shaken and hesitant to talk.
A neighbor, who did not want to be identified for personal safety reasons, said they called 911 around midnight after hearing gunshots. The neighbor, who has lived in the area for years, said they were aware of cockfighting at the nearby property but were not involved. They said the illegal activity had started at the property only recently.
“We just live here, we don’t want to condone anything like that,” the neighbor said while expressing condolences for those killed and injured. They said the situation was “heartbreaking.”
The neighbor said that cockfighting is common in the broader area but that they never had concerns about their own safety.
The neighbor said they had just returned home from work shortly before the shooting. The cockfight appeared to already be over and “people were just relaxing, having fun and talking story” when five gunshots rang out in quick succession.
“I didn’t know who was shooting or where bullets were coming from,” the neighbor said.
They said police responding to the incident canvassed the area for several hours before leaving. When members of the news media went to look at the apparent crime scene Saturday moring, no law enforcement was present and an individual in the field angrily demanded that reporters leave.
Thoemmes said it’s not clear whether the shooting was related to the cockfight itself.
“I don’t understand the circumstances for this,” she said. “It could have stemmed from something totally different. It just happened to be in the same area, at the same time.”
KHON2, citing police, reported that the fatalities were a 59-year-old woman and 34-year-old man, and that the injured were men ages 38, 40 and 57, all of whom had been released from the hospital.
State Rep. Darius Kila (D, Nanakuli-Maili) said in a statement released Saturday that “first and foremost, my prayers go out to the ‘ohana of all involved in this tragedy and I encourage our community to surround them with aloha. If you have any information to share, please do so with the Honolulu Police Department as they investigate this incident so those responsible can be held accountable.”
Cockfighting is illegal under federal and state law but persists in rural areas in Hawaii. On March 4, Hawaii island police arrested and charged four men at a large cockfight in Kealakekua, where drugs and illegal firearms were confiscated along with $8,000 in cash and two vehicles.
Police and FBI agents armed with a warrant raided a 500-acre property on Hokukano Ranch where an estimated 800 to 1,000 people had gathered for the cockfight. Four dead roosters, 14 live ones and cockfighting paraphernalia also were seized. Police said that as law enforcement officers were about to raid the site, several shots were fired and the crowd scattered.
Patty Kahanamoku-Teruya, chair of Nanakuli-Maili Neighborhood Board said the shooting was sad “but god forbid, it was going to happen.”
She said neighborhood residents have raised concerns about cockfights and other crime in the area but are hesitant to name those involved or to talk to police and news media.
“It’s a small community, so people are afraid of talking,” Kahanamoku-Teruya said. “(It’s) not just chicken fighting but the gambling establishment has increased too, and people are afraid.”
She noted that many residents have told her they have called in anonymous tips to HPD and seen little response. But police tasked with policing the west side are spread thin.
Maili currently falls under HPD Patrol District 8, which also includes Ewa, Ewa Beach, West Loch, Barbers Point, Kapolei, Makakilo, Campbell Industrial Park, Honokai Hale, Ko Olina, Nanakuli, Waianae, Makaha, Makua and Kaena. Twenty-one officers are responsible for patrolling the entire area.
Kahanamoku-Teruya said she would like to see a larger police presence on Oahu’s Leeward Coast and urged the city to finish construction of HPD’s Waianae Substation — a 25,172-square-foot, two-story structure dedicated in 2016 at a cost of $16 million — that city officials say still needs millions to complete.
HPD is also struggling to fill more than 300 vacancies, including those in District 8. Last month the Honolulu City Council unanimously approved a resolution introduced by Council member Andria Tupola asking HPD leaders to provide a plan for a new Waianae patrol district by 2024.
In discussing the resolution with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser last month, Tupola, whose district includes the Waianae Coast, said “the highest volume of calls comes from the Waianae beats. They cannot commit to creating a District 9 because they don’t have the manpower to do so. How do you build out a District 9? You address the manpower issue.”
The neighbor who heard the shooting said they would like to see some sort of response from HPD.
“I hope they find the guy who did it,” they said. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
