Maui police officer Suzanne O, who was shot and killed by a gunman Friday night, was originally from American Samoa and saw herself as a role model for other girls and young women from the Pacific Islands.

“I want to show them that there’s more to life,” she said in a recruiting video for the department three years ago.

O was responding to a report of a man firing a rifle in Pāʻia when she was shot in the chest at about 8:30 p.m., Maui police officials said. O is the first Maui officer to die by gunfire in the line of duty in nearly 70 years.

The suspect was shot and wounded by other officers and was taken into custody. His identity had not been released by Saturday evening and police declined to give out any other details on the shooting. Maui Police Chief John Pelletier told Hawaii News Now he expected to hold a press conference in the coming days to reveal more about what happened.

O joined the Maui Police Department in 2020, working in the Kīhei Patrol District before moving to the Wailuku Patrol District in December 2021, according to a statement from the department. She was a member of the Honor Guard and was awarded the Certificate of Merit for her work Upcountry during the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfires.

“Her colleagues describe her as compassionate, genuine, honest, and deeply dedicated to serving Maui County,” the department said in the statement. “In her free time, she enjoyed being with her niece and nephews, as family was always her top priority.”

Police Officer Deaths Rare On Maui

Five Maui police officers have been killed or died on duty since 1941, according to information complied by the State of Hawaiʻi Organization of Police Officers and other records.

O is the second female police officer to have been killed in Hawaiʻi in recent years. Honolulu police officer Tiffany-Victoria Bilon Enriquez was shot by a man with a rifle in 2020 near Diamond Head as she and her partner, who was also killed, walked up the driveway of a house.

On Maui, the last case of a fatal shooting of a police officer was in 1958 when a man grabbed the gun of an officer who was driving him home from the hospital and shot him.

William F. Roback Sr., 57, died in his cruiser on April 13, 1958, when he was shot in the chest with his own .38-caliber revolver, according to an April 1958 article in the Honolulu Advertiser. He had been a police officer in Hana for more than 30 years.

The gunman, Ricardo Barreto, also fired the pistol at Roback’s partner, Lt. Leslie Medeiros, striking him in the face and chest, according to the article. Medeiros, badly wounded, managed to use his own handgun to fire six shots at Barreto, killing him.

A few years earlier, in July 1952, Maui police officer Frank Kong was shot by two prisoners who lured him into a common area at the Maui County jail in Wailuku then shot him with a gun stolen from a nearby police pistol range. The prisoners, Pedro Encomienda and Sam Kauwe, escaped in a prison truck, newspapers reported at the time.

Kauwe, who had been charged with forgery, was found at a friend’s house a few hours later and taken into custody. Encomienda, who had been awaiting trial on charges related to the rape and murder of a 25-year-old woman, was found dead in a Catholic Church, having shot himself in the head after confessing to a priest.

Two Maui officers, Gene Williams and Harry Fung, died after being struck by drunk drivers while directing traffic, Williams in 1999 and Fung in 1941. Officer Cerilo Agarano died after suffering a heart attack while on an undercover assignment in 1999.

‘There’s More To Life’

Suzanne O grew up in a small community in American Samoa, she said in an October 2022 Maui Police Department recruiting video. By becoming a police officer, O hoped to be an inspiration for young girls from the islands and to show them that women could pursue different career paths, she said.

The islands offered careers in the military but not much more, she said, and she wanted to show them there were other options besides the service.

O said at the time she hoped to get a bachelor’s degree but wanted to experience a few years in patrol before deciding what type of officer she wanted to be.

She valued respect and compassion, which helped her in her role as a police officer, she said.

“Whether it’s within the department or outside the department, be respectful,” she said. “Always be courteous. It’s never wrong, or it’s never a bad thing, to be courteous to people and show compassion.”

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.