Police officer
cleared in
Makapuu shooting

The suspect is accused of
taking one police officer's gun
and using it to shoot another

By Pat Omandam
Star-Bulletin

The city prosecutor's office has cleared Honolulu Police officer John Veneri for shooting and injuring a burglary suspect during a Sept. 11 arrest at Makapuu Lighthouse Road.

Veneri shot Peter K. Moses after Moses allegedly wounded another police officer with Veneri's gun.

Moses, who faces first-degree attempted murder and other related charges, will face trial Nov. 23. He pleaded innocent to the charges and is being held at Oahu Community Correctional Center on a bail of $750,000.

The three officers involved in the shooting told HPD investigators there was no indication the 20-year-old Waimanalo resident would turn violent when they moved to arrest him on suspicion of breaking into a car parked along the road.

Deputy Prosecutor Larry Grean of the prosecutor's screening intake division explained yesterday that officer Earl Haskell, acting on a tip from a passing bicyclist, stopped Moses as he walked down the road and questioned whether the items he carried were stolen from the car parked nearby.

Moses initially told Haskell the items belonged to his family, but later admitted he stole them and pleaded with Haskell to let him go, Grean said. Instead, Haskell told Moses to sit down while he briefed fellow officers John Veneri and Laura Chong, who had arrived on the scene.

"So far up to that point, there was nothing violent going on," Grean said. "Moses was sitting down on a cement piling. They (officers) were getting briefed."

"When the decision was made to make the arrest, that's when all hell broke loose," he said.

According to statements from the trio, Moses, who is 6-foot-2 and weighs 280 pounds, started kicking and punching the officers. During the struggle, Grean said, Moses grabbed Veneri's holstered semiautomatic handgun before he and Haskell fell over a piling and down an embankment.

Grean said Moses was the first to scramble to his feet, and he used Veneri's gun to shoot Haskell in the stomach while the officer was on the ground. Moses then turned the weapon toward the other officers as he ran across Kalanianaole Highway and climbed into Haskell's patrol car.

Grean said Moses wanted to use the vehicle to escape, but the keys were not in the ignition. During this time, Veneri took Chong's weapon and told her to call for backup. Moses then fired a shot at Veneri before his weapon jammed.

Veneri, with Chong's handgun, returned fire 32 times. Grean said Moses was hit eight times. Grean said the officers aren't sure how Moses obtained Veneri's gun because everything happened quickly.

"This guy is a big person. I don't know whether he was on drugs or not, but he was very violent and somehow he was able to wrestle the gun away," he said.

Grean, however, couldn't explain why Chong did not draw her weapon before Veneri took it. But he believes Veneri may have felt better equipped to handle the situation because Moses had directed his second shot at him.

A thorough investigation by HPD Internal Affairs shows the use of deadly force was justified because Veneri was protecting himself and Chong.

Haskell is expected to remain hospitalized for another month. Despite his life-threatening injuries, Grean praised the officer's efforts to record a statement for investigators.

"You could tell he was in pain. It was obvious in his voice," he said.