HILO — For the second time in less than a week, Hawaii Island police are investigating a fatal officer-involved shooting in Hilo.
Four officers shot and killed 29-year-old Scottie I.K. Yanagawa of Hilo in the Walmart parking lot late Tuesday night following a traffic stop of a Toyota minivan driven by a woman. According to a written statement, when officers ordered the pair out of the van in the big-box store’s Makaala Street parking lot, Yanagawa got out, brandished a handgun, and shot at officers.
Four officers returned fire, killing Yanagawa. The officers who fired their weapons have 14, 12, seven and six years of experience with law enforcement, police said in a written statement. They did not say if any officers or other bystanders were wounded in the incident.
Police arrested the female driver, 30-year-old Kaiini Febo Santiago of Pahoa, on suspicion of hindering prosecution for having aiding a wanted fugitive. Santiago, who was uninjured, is being held at the Hilo police cellblock pending further investigation and had not been charged as of Wednesday afternoon.
Yanagawa was a furlough escapee who did not return Nov. 19 from a work program day pass at Hale Nani Reintegration Center in Hilo. Police on Monday issued a wanted bulletin, saying Yanagawa, who was serving time for burglary and felony theft, was wanted for his alleged involvement in a Jan. 31 shooting near Honolii Beach in Hilo. The dispatch described Yanagawa as “armed and dangerous.”
Police have declined to say if either Yanagawa’s shooting death or the fatal shooting early Friday of 38-year-old Ronald Barawis Jr. of Kailua-Kona behind the McDonald’s restaurant in the Puainako Town Center or both of the officer-involved fatal shootings of wanted suspects in Hilo during the past week were cases of so-called “suicide by cop.”
“We have nothing that would lead us to come to that conclusion,” Maj. Randy Apele said Wednesday. “We’d have to definitely know the thought processes of the suspects to come to that determination.”
The website USLegal.com defines suicide by cop as an incident in which “a person intentionally engages in life-threatening behavior to induce a police officer to shoot that person.”
Yanagawa’s death marked the second police-involved fatal shooting on the Big Island in 2015, and came just five days after officers shot and killed Barawis behind the Puainako McDonald’s.
Police say Barawis, who was wanted for violating his parole and for questioning for allegedly trying to run down a police officer with a car Jan. 20 in Kona, had a shotgun, rifle and two semi-automatic handguns in the 1991 Honda sedan he was driving.
Barawis was paroled in October for shooting at a police officer in Ocean View in 2000. He was originally charged with attempted murder but was convicted of attempted first-degree assault and several firearms charges and sentenced in 2002 to 20 years in prison. His original projected release date was in 2029.
A 28-year-old woman in the front passenger seat of Barawis’ car was also shot in the face. She survived and was taken to an Oahu hospital. She hasn’t been arrested or charged with any crimes, and police have not released her name.
All four officers involved in Yanagawa’s shooting and the three involved in Barawis’ shooting are on paid administrative leave. The Hilo Criminal Investigations Section is conducting criminal investigations, and the Office of Professional Standards, the department’s internal affairs unit, is conducting an administrative investigation, standard practice in a police-involved shooting.
There were four police-involved shootings in 2015 on the Big Island, none fatal, all in East Hawaii. All involved motorists who allegedly drove toward an officer or officers and all were apprehended by police.
Two suspects, Daesyn Pacheco-Muragin and Cherish Torres, pleaded guilty to various charges and were sentenced to five years in prison. The others, James Salai and Jomal Gin Ford, are in custody awaiting trial on numerous charges, including terroristic threatening for Salai and four counts of attempted murder for Ford.
Police ask anyone who witnessed the Tuesday night incident to call Detective Joel Field at 961-2361 or Crime Stoppers at 961-8300.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.