MAUI POLICE CHIEF DETAILS SHOOTING

Tom Phillips Tells How An Attempted Drug Raid Turned
Deadly

WAILUKU ; Maui police officers fired shots at a car to try to stop a
fleeing George Brittain Jr. from ramming a Makawao warehouse door
being held partially open by three police officers, Maui Police Chief
Tom Phillips said.

Brittain, who was found later near the car at a residence two miles
away from the shooting, died from a loss of blood, police said.

"By the time they got to the scene, Brittain was dead," Phillips
said.

In an interview yesterday, Phillips defended his officers' actions.
When the car hit the warehouse door at 241 Hoomaha Road, one officer
was knocked unconscious and thrown 30 feet to the side of the
warehouse, a second was thrown to the other side and a third was
thrown under the warehouse door, he said.

Phillips said the officer thrown under the door injured his
foot.

All three officers were treated and released from Maui Memorial
Medical Center, but two of the three are on injury leave.

Two groups of officers, perhaps totaling close to 14, executed a drug
warrant at the house and the nearby warehouse at Hoomaha Road a
little after 6 a.m. last Friday, police said.

Three officers pulled up the hinged warehouse door to create enough
space for other officers to crawl under and into the structure.
Brittain was in a vehicle in the warehouse, police said.

Phillips said the officers who entered the warehouse announced they
were police executing a search warrant and ordered Brittain to get
out of the vehicle.

Phillips said Brittain backed out, ramming the door and officers,
then drove forward into the path of the officer who had injured his
foot.

Phillips said most shots were fired outside the warehouse while the
car was headed toward the injured officer and that four officers
fired their weapons.

The injured officer barely managed to get out of the way of the
fleeing vehicle, Phillips said.

"If he hadn't scrambled out of that situation, I'm sure he would have
been killed," he said.

Phillips said police did not to pursue the vehicle because they were
far from their vehicles and were attending to the injured officers.

At 6:42 a.m. police received a call from a man who noticed a smoking
car riddled with bullet holes near a residence at Hoopono Place.

Police officers arrived at 6:43 a.m. and called for a medic at 6:44
a.m.

Police said officers called at 6:45 a.m. to say that Brittain was
dead.

Phillips said the department was lucky that none of the officers was
killed and that a 17-year-old girl in the fleeing car with Brittain
was uninjured.

The girl, not related to Brittain, was not arrested and was released
into the custody of her parents, police said.

Phillips said police were executing a narcotics search warrant at the
Hoomaha Road residence, occupied by a 37-year-old man and 35-year-old
woman, and that Brittain happened to be on the property.

An autopsy showed that Brittain had crystal methamphetamine in his
system.

Brittain had 10 convictions, including one for driving a stolen
vehicle.

Police found crystal meth, marijuana, pills, drug pipes and cash at
the Hoomaha Road address.

Phillips said a 37-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman were arrested
at the house and released pending further investigation.