KEALAKEKUA — The Kapaau man accused of shooting his girlfriend and a police officer during a 2015 standoff also fired shots at Special Response Team members deploying oleoresin capsicum canisters into his home shortly before he gave himself up.
Sgt. Paul Kim, a member of the Hawaii Police Department’s SRT, was still in the turret of the department’s tactical vehicle, also known as the Bearcat, deploying or had just finished deploying the canisters containing the powder form of pepper spay when Macdon “Donny” Thromman fired a shot from within the home, HPD Detective and fellow SRT member Aaron Carvalho testified Tuesday during Thromman’s jury trial.
“I heard a gunshot, this time coming from the front of the house,” Carvalho said, noting he was inside the vehicle at the time and saw splinters or debris being pushed out from the house, but not the actual bullet. “It appeared to strike the front of the Bearcat.”
That shot, which occurred sometime after 3:30 p.m. July 14, 2015, after police began deploying the canisters when negotiations broke down, resulted in a blemish to the left and below of where the turret hatch was raised and Kim was standing, said Sgt. Calvin Delaries, who was commanding the team during the July 13-14 incident. Kim was not hit.
“It looked like fresh paint chipping. The paint had chipped off the Bearcat but the metal underneath was still fresh,” Delaries said, noting that officers observed where the projectile struck after the incident. Those fresh chips were not there during inspection on July 10 and during CALEA accreditation on July 13.
On cross-examination, Thromman’s attorney Terri Fujioka-Lilley questioned other marks in the paint visible in a photo submitted into evidence. Delaries said he was unsure exactly how the other marks got there, suggesting wear and tear, but noted the other marks appeared to be older as they had already started to rust.
Fujioka-Lilley also moved to have Carvahlo’s testimony struck from the record because he couldn’t have been sure Kim was still standing in the turret when her client allegedly fired the shot. Judge Ronald Ibarra denied the motion, leaving the jury to decide the matter. Kauanoe Jackson subsequently established that at the time of the shot, Carvalho was inside the Bearcat and behind Kim, providing cover.
Kim is slated to take the stand when the jury trial resumes this morning.
Tuesday marked the fourth full day of the trial before Ibarra in Kealakekua with nine witnesses, including neighbors, police negotiators and members of the Special Response Team, taking the stand to provide testimony. The jury, which includes two alternates, is composed of nine men and five women.
Thromman faces three counts first-degree attempted murder, two counts second-degree attempted murder, 10 counts first-degree terrorist threatening, two counts second-degree assault and one count each abuse of a family or household member younger than age 14, kidnapping, first-degree assault, second-degree reckless endangering, failure to have a permit to acquire a firearm and failure to register a firearm within five days in connection with the 20-hour standoff that began around 8 p.m. July 13 and did not come to an end until about 4:30 p.m. the following day.
According to court records, Thromman allegedly fired a .30-30 hunting rifle at his girlfriend, striking her in the leg on July 13. He also shot a responding officer, identified as Ray Fukuda, in the right arm before the 20-hour standoff ensued.
The shot allegedly fired on July 14 by Thromman at the SRT vehicle followed two other shots fired while the team was on scene.
Shortly before the Bearcat was hit, several SRT members testified that a shot had been fired from within the house that went through a garage wall and struck an aerosol can. Prior to that, Thromman allegedly fired a shot after the first OC canister was deployed into the rear of the house, Sgt. Chris Ragasa testified. Ragasa was responsible for deploying the canisters into the rear of the home after the order was given at 3:33 p.m.
“You could see the glass flying out toward our direction right after the round (canister) entered” the bathroom, Ragasa recalled.
After a total of eight OC canisters were deployed into the home — four into the front and four into the back — Sgt. Reynold Kahalewai, a member of the crisis negotiation team who’d spoken with Thromman during the early hours of July 14, 2015, arrived on the scene and using the Bearcat’s public address system and told him “this is me, you said you’d come out if I came out here,” said Delaries, “And, shortly after that, the suspect exited the residence.”
Thromman was subsequently taken into custody without incident, multiple officers testified Tuesday. Officers found the rifle on a desk when they cleared the home and maintained it until detectives arrived shortly after 5 p.m. to continue the investigation.
Also during Tuesday’s trial, officers testified about threats made by Thromman, including one around midnight July 14, 2015, that Thromman planned to turn off all the lights, which he ended up doing, and have a “shootout with police,” which did not occur.
Officers also described an incident that occurred later in the morning when the Bearcat was sent across the highway to evacuate a residence and Thromman exited his home, walked to a vehicle with his rifle, and removed a small item from the passenger side before returning to his home. He neither pointed the rifle at the officers nor complied with commands.
Hawaii Police Department Officer William Vickery, a crisis negotiation team member, testified that Thromman told him he was ready to shoot if officers stormed his home.
“I guess he must have saw movement of some sort and he said to me, ‘What? They getting ready to storm my house? I ready for them,’” Vickery said. “If they storm my house, I’m going to shoot at them as much as I can.”
Vickery testified he talked to Thromman “a lot” of times between 8 a.m. and 2 to 2:30 p.m. July 14, after taking over negotiations, during which he said Thromman’s tone and manner ranged from calm and normal to angry and yelling. The longest call, he said, lasted between 5 and 7 minutes; Thromman would usually hang up on him.
Vickery also testified that Thromman, after noticing officers around his home, told him “something to the effect that it’s a good thing that he’s not a bad guy or he’d shoot those policemen out there.”
Two neighbors also testified Tuesday, including Paul Salvador, who has lived in his home for 49 years across the highway and one door down from the home in which Thromman resided.
Salvador told the jury he was in his backyard with his brother when they heard what sounded like kids yelling for help. The pair headed to their front yard where they saw a man who Salvador referred to as a cousin coming down the driveway from the Thromman house and then heard a gunshot and took cover behind a rock wall. Next, they saw another cousin, a woman, come down to the highway’s shoulder.
“She was like saying, ‘where are the cops, where are the police, they should be here by now,’” Salvador testified, noting that she was not talking directly to him, but more likely to herself.
That was followed by another gunshot, which caused the brothers to take cover again. Then two officers arrived on the scene and informed them to stay back and remain safe. The officers then headed up the driveway, at which point Salvador testified he lost sight of them because of the terrain and bushes.
Salvador did testify, however, that he was able to hear one of the officers yell to “drop the weapon” before another gunshot was heard.
“We went and hid,” Salvador said. “Then we got out and came out and saw two cops walking back to their vehicles.” He later added that he heard the officers calling on the radio that an “officer got shot.”
After the officers came back down, Heather Coati, Thromman’s girlfriend, came “limping toward the cops,” who then told her to take cover in a bush area. Salvador said his brother, Alfredo, went to assist her while he went to grab a towel to wrap her leg. Paul then took her to the hospital.