A police officer shot and killed a man and his dog late Monday afternoon at a home near the corner of East Kawailani Street and Kanoelehua Avenue in Hilo.
A police officer shot and killed a man and his dog late Monday afternoon at a home near the corner of East Kawailani Street and Kanoelehua Avenue in Hilo.
According to police, a report of a disturbance was received at about 4:20 p.m. An officer arriving at the scene encountered a knife-wielding man with a pit bull that earlier had earlier chased paramedics back into their ambulance.
Police say the officer fired several shots, killing the man and the dog.
The name and age of the man were being withheld by police pending positive identification.
West Kawailani Street was cordoned off between Kanoelehua and Kilauea avenues. Police reportedly reopened the street at about 6:30 p.m.
Officers remained at the home to secure the scene late Monday night.
Police say the department’s Hilo Criminal Investigations Section is conduct a criminal investigation into the shooting, and the Office of Professional Standards, the department’s internal affairs unit, is conducting an administrative investigation, standard procedure in any police-involved shooting.
The officer, whose identity was not disclosed by the department will be placed on paid administrative leave while the investigations are conducted, also standard procedure.
Anyone with information about the incident to call the police non-emergency line at 935-3311 or contact Detective Robert Almeida at 961-2386 or Robert.almeida@hawaiicounty.gov. Those who prefer anonymity may call Crime Stoppers at 961-8300.
Monday’s shooting was the third fatal police-involved shooting this year in Hilo.
On Feb. 5, officers shot and killed 38-year-old Ronald Barawis of Kailua-Kona and critically injured a woman in the car with him at the Puainako Town Center McDonald’s drive-thru.
Four days later, officers shot and killed 29-year-old Scottie I.K. Yanagawa in the Hilo Walmart parking lot.
Barawis was a recently paroled ex-convict; Yanagawa was a prison furlough escapee. Both were wanted by police as suspects in an early-morning shooting Jan. 31 above Honolii Beach Park in Hilo that hospitalized 31-year-old William “Willie Boy” Holbron-Kealoha. A third man, John Perez III, who had been recently paroled for a 1991 murder, is charged with attempted second-degree murder in that shooting.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com