HONOLULU — A man was arrested on suspicion of murder after shooting dead a neighbor who opened fire on a rally in Hawaii has been released and it is not yet clear whether criminal charges will be filed, police said Tuesday.
Three people were killed and two others were wounded in a shooting at a home that stemmed from a neighborhood dispute Saturday night in Waianae, a community on Oahu’s west coast. The gunman was also fatally shot by a resident, who was arrested on a charge of second-degree murder, police said.
Honolulu police said the 42-year-old man was released Sunday night pending investigation. The Honolulu District Attorney’s Office will ultimately decide whether to file charges, Police Chief Joe Logan said Tuesday.
“In Hawaii, we are not a ‘stand your ground’ state,” he said. “Even if you have a license to carry, if you are an individual who discharges a firearm that is involved in the injury of another individual, … you will be arrested.”
The identities of the victims were not released by the Honolulu coroner on Tuesday.
On Saturday night, a family was having a gathering in a carport when a 58-year-old neighbor rammed cars into the carport with a front-end loader and opened fire, police said. Three women were killed. The 42-year-old man, who lives in the home where the gathering took place, shot the 58-year-old dead with a handgun, police said.
Philip Ganaban, chairman of the Waianae Coast Neighborhood Board, said he knows the families of both homes involved. He was still struggling Tuesday to figure out what happened. The man who opened fire at the gathering was known as a family man, Ganaban said.
“We’re still wondering what triggered him so badly,” Ganaban said. “It was a bad decision he made.”
The 58-year-old was known for renting out space on his property for parties, Ganaban said. Earlier in the evening, some people at the gathering were concerned about people renting the space and “burning rubber with cars driving up and down the road,” Ganaban said.
Police said he then used heavy equipment with four 55-gallon drums of unknown fuel to ram vehicles into the carport.