The private security company whose officer shot and killed a pet dog at Honolulu Airport last week said the pit bull was loose and tried to attack the officer, who was injured while trying to avoid the dog.
“Securitas Management confirms that while responding to a call for assistance from another officer, a Securitas law enforcement officer assigned to the Honolulu International Airport shot a pit bull which was loose and which had threatened and attempted to attack the officer,” Securitas Security Services USA Inc. said in a statement Tuesday.
The company said the animal was shot by the unidentified officer at about 6:20 p.m. March 28.
The dog was in an “unauthorized public area” adjacent to the international arrivals terminal and the Hawaiian Airlines drive-thru check-in area, according to Securitas.
A summary from the company said the dog was “aggressively barking and lunging at tourists in the area,” and when the officer arrived the pit bull was outside its kennel. The company said the dog got away from the owners and began pursuing the officer as he was asking them to leave the unauthorized parking area.
“Despite repeated requests from the officer to the owners to restrain the pursuing pit bull, the owners were unable to control the loose animal,” the statement said.
“The officer attempted to evade the pit bull’s pursuit by moving backwards and sideways. The officer attempted to seek protection by using the coconut trees in that area as a barrier. As the Pit Bull lunged toward him, the officer fired a single shot at close range, in self defense to prevent being attacked.”
While trying to evade the pit bull, Securitas said, the officer fell backward into a tree and was injured, and is currently on medical leave.
Securitas said the officer “has expressed his sorrow and condolences to the family for the loss of the pit bull. Securitas management shares the same sentiment in this unfortunate incident.”
The account differs from the version given by the dog’s owner, Leisha Ramos, whose 2-year-old pit bull mix, named Kai‘ele, was shot in the forehead after they arrived on separate flights from Hawaii island.
The Sheriff Division has since returned Kai‘ele’s body to Ramos, and the dog is being cremated, she said.
Following Securitas’ statement, Ramos, 25, of Mililani, said that she was certain airport security footage will support her account and not the company’s.
She said all of the details as described by Securitas are inaccurate.
Asked to specify which parts of the statement are incorrect, Ramos said, “All of it.”
“The dog wasn’t loose,” she said. “My dog was tied to a coconut tree when he (the officer) came up. … He never once asked us to control our dog because we didn’t have to. Our dog wasn’t being aggressive in the first place. ‘Aggressively barking and lunging’? There was nobody around us for my dog to bark or lunge at.”
Ramos said the officer was not focused on Kai‘ele because he was getting into a confrontation with her boyfriend, Jadd Matsuda, 38.
“The first thing he did was start yelling at us while tapping his gun, saying he would ‘take care of it,’” Ramos said. “My boyfriend said, ‘What are you going to do, shoot my dog?’ He said, ‘You guys need to leave now, or I’ll take care of it.’ He was arguing with my boyfriend, not even paying attention to the dog.”
Ramos previously said her boyfriend picked up Kai‘ele at the air cargo area, then drove his truck and parked near a grassy area just mauka of the Hawaiian Airlines terminal.
She said Kai‘ele was left chained to a nearby coconut tree, and Matsuda went to gather her luggage at the baggage claim area.
Ramos said the security officer parked his truck and got out while shouting that they had to leave and remove the dog.
She said Kai‘ele’s chain broke but that she immediately grabbed his collar before the dog pulled away.
Ramos said she was holding her 5-month-old baby when the guard shot the dog in the forehead from a few feet away.
According to state Sen. Will Espero, the security officer is being investigated for second-degree reckless endangering and was previously fired as a civilian police officer for the Army “for pulling a gun too much.”
Espero, former chairman of the Senate’s Public Safety Committee, said a high-ranking sheriff’s deputy based at the Sheriff Division’s airport substation told him that the unidentified “older … airport police” officer previously provided Department of Defense security as a civilian at Fort Shafter and possibly Fort DeRussy but was fired, although the date is unclear.
There has been friction between Securitas’ armed “airport police” and sheriff’s deputies at the airport. The deputies’ union, the Hawaii Government Employees Association, filed a lawsuit last year challenging Securitas’ security contract at the airport.
