Man held for attack on police is released
Maui police released without charges the 19-year-old Kihei man who was shot by police after allegedly striking an officer with a pickup truck Sunday near Windmill Beach.
He had been under arrest on suspicion of first-degree attempted murder.
An undisclosed number of Lahaina district officers, who fired their weapons at the pickup truck, possibly injuring three of its five occupants, were placed on administrative leave, said Maui police spokesman Lt. Tivoli Faaumu. That is standard practice after such an incident.
Police recovered a single firearm from the area.
Police said they do not yet know whether the bullets that injured the three teenage males might have come from a weapon other than those of police, Faaumu said.
He attributed the delay in information to the distance between alleged crime scenes.
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The officers, who were sent to investigate reports of gunfire in the Windmill Beach area, were talking to witnesses when the truck approached them at 4:14 a.m. Sunday. The witnesses pointed to the pickup as being involved in the gunfire incident.
The truck driver allegedly accelerated toward the officers, striking one, resulting in minor injury, police said. Officers then fired at the pickup’s occupants and pursued it onto Honoapiilani Highway and later found it stopped at the Honolua Bay Lookout.
Police arrested and released without charges the two uninjured occupants.
The driver was shot once behind his left ear, police said. The bullet was removed Sunday, and he was released at 10:10 a.m. yesterday from Maui Memorial Medical Center. He was arrested on suspicion of first-degree attempted murder and later released pending investigation.
An 18-year-old Kihei man received a superficial wound to his left shoulder and a deep-tissue injury to his right shoulder that severed an artery.
He was in stable condition yesterday at the Queen’s Medical Center and is expected to be released in a few days.
A 17-year-old Kihei boy was shot once in the buttocks and taken to Maui Memorial, where he was treated and released Sunday.
