Kauai man shot by police will face charges in Circuit Court
LIHUE » The Kauai man shot by police three weeks ago will be facing trial in Circuit Court after a proceeding yesterday.
Police testified in the preliminary hearing that officer Randy Ledesma shot Tavis Apo, 31, of Waimea after the man brandished a knife and a pellet gun and then rammed his vehicle into Ledesma's.
But all four police officers, including the two sergeants who were at the scene, said they felt the gun looked real, and they all feared for their lives as the man refused to even answer police demands to put the gun down.
"I told him to drop the knife, and he told me, 'Why?'" Ledesma testified. "If a man would show up at the police station with a knife and gun, I was really scared (of what he would do) if he entered out into the public."
Ledesma blocked in Apo's sport utility vehicle, he testified, and when the man rammed his vehicle and then made a move to try it again, he fired into the SUV through the windshield, hitting Apo in the face.
Judge Trudy Senda found there was enough probable cause for charges against Apo -- including drunken driving, terroristic threatening and criminal property damage -- to be bound over to Circuit Court. A charge of first-degree attempted assault on a police officer was dismissed by Senda for lack of evidence.