Police officers responding to a report of a stolen Mazda shot one of the vehicle’s occupants after the driver repeatedly rammed into an unmarked police car and a second unoccupied car, Interim Chief Rade Vanic said Monday night.

Honolulu police officers first spotted the car — which had been linked to a robbery the previous week — driving through downtown Honolulu near Ward Avenue and South King Street on Monday afternoon before locating it in a parking lot of a housing complex on Kapiʻolani Boulevard.

Responding officers, who were in plainclothes and not wearing body cameras, gave repeated commands for the vehicle’s occupants to get out of the car when the driver started driving toward officers, Vanic said.

“Obviously, the individuals being in a car and driving toward the officers, ramming their vehicle, and it being dynamic and happening very quickly, didn’t also give the officers very much opportunity,” Vanic said. “While our officers did their best in a dynamic situation like this, it not only was very dangerous for our officers, but also for the individuals involved, which really put our officers in the situation that they were in.”

The Mazda driver rammed into the police car and another vehicle multiple times, coming to a stop after one of the officers fired at the car, striking the front seat passenger. One of the officers was injured in the encounter, Vanic said, and was still at the hospital as of 9 p.m. He did not provide any further details on the officer’s injuries.

The 19-year-old driver of the vehicle, who was uninjured, was arrested for unauthorized control of a propelled vehicle in the first degree, three counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, criminal property damage and resisting arrest.

An 18-year-old passenger in the car was shot in his “lower extremities,” Vanic said. He was transported to an area hospital and later arrested for unauthorized entry into a motor vehicle in the second degree.

The shooting occurred at about 3:52 p.m., according to department spokesperson Lance Aquino. Residents of the housing complex said they heard the gunshots. Police are still investigating whether the two teenagers had any weapons in the car, Vanic said.

Manny Valdez, a veteran who lives in the housing complex where the shooting occurred, was sitting outside the yellow police tape around 8:30 p.m. as investigators continued working at the scene. He said he’d seen one of the teenagers and the stolen Mazda around the property for the last three weeks. One of the teenagers tried to sell him and his wife the car for $2,000, he said, but didn’t have any paperwork.

Neither of the two teenagers appear to been known to police or have a criminal record, Vanic said, although that remains under investigation.

The officer who discharged his weapon on Monday had four years of experience and has been offered administrative leave and peer support, which follows department policy. The investigation into the shooting is ongoing, Vanic said.

Prosecutors in Honolulu almost always find that officers involved in shootings were justified in their use of force. This February, Prosecutor Steve Alm declined to press charges against four officers who shot and killed 56-year-old Eric Walsh, who had barricaded himself in a Waikīkī condo and brandished a replica gun. 

Alm did file charges against officers in the 2021 shooting of Iremamber Sykap, a Micronesian teenager who was shot by officers while fleeing arrest in a stolen Honda Civic, but a judge later threw out the cases. The Honolulu City Council voted in December to pay $1 million to settle a civil lawsuit from Sykap’s family. Council members said they believed the police acted appropriately in that case but were authorizing the payment to protect the officers from future liability.