Newswatch Star-Bulletin staff and wire

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USS Chung-Hoon tends to injured crewman on freighter

An injured crew member aboard a Panamanian bulk carrier was to be transported to the Queen's Medical Center yesterday after he lost his right hand in a work-related incident.

USS Chung-Hoon, Pearl Harbor's newest guided-missile destroyer, conducted the emergency medical evacuation for the crew member aboard the C-Laurel about 1:40 a.m. yesterday. The carrier was located about 360 miles northeast of Kahului, according to a Navy spokeswoman.

The crew member, a 59-year-old South Korean national, also suffered a potential broken right arm.

Chung-Hoon's independent duty corpsman and medical team tended to the crew member's injuries. A Kaneohe-based helicopter was to transport him to Queen's as soon as the destroyer was in helicopter range of Oahu.

The Coast Guard contacted the Chung-Hoon, which was conducting normal operations in the proximity of the carrier, after they received a distress call from the C-Laurel.

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Police, Fire, Courts



By Star-Bulletin staff

HONOLULU

HPD seeks suspect in Kapalama bank heist

Police are looking for a man, possibly in his 50s or 60s, who robbed a Kapalama bank yesterday morning.

Police said the suspect entered the Kapalama Branch of American Savings Bank at 1190 Dillingham Blvd. at 9 a.m. yesterday.

The suspect handed the teller a demand note and fled with an undisclosed amount of money, according to police. No weapon was displayed and the man fled on foot.

He is described as 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighing 140 to 160 pounds, with a medium build and gray hair, wearing a baseball cap with possibly a Sony Open logo, a gray T-shirt, long blue denim pants and slippers.

Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300 or *CRIME on a cell phone.

Woman robbed while at church in Kaimuki

Honolulu police are looking for witnesses to a robbery of a 90-year-old woman at a church in Kaimuki.

The woman was praying in St. Patrick Church on 7th Avenue about 10:30 a.m. Saturday, when she noticed a man standing at the front door, police said. The woman told police the man approached her from behind, pushed her down and grabbed her handbag off her right shoulder.

The man fled on foot in the makai direction on 7th Avenue.

He is believed to be between 30 and 40 years old, 5 feet 9 inches tall, less than 180 pounds with black hair combed neatly to the back. He was wearing a faded blue floral short-sleeve aloha shirt and blue long pants.

Anyone with information about this person is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300, or *CRIME by cellular telephone.

WEST OAHU

Pedestrian who died in Pearl City identified

The city Medical Examiner's Office identified the 31-year-old Pearl City man who was fatally injured while crossing Kamehameha Highway in Pearl City as Melvin Ulep.

Ulep was in a marked crosswalk when a car struck him Tuesday afternoon near Blaisdell Park just Ewa of Kaluamoi Drive.

Ulep was taken to the Queen's Medical Center, where he later died.

NEIGHBOR ISLANDS

Motorcyclist dies after crash on Maui

WAILUKU » A 35-year-old man died Tuesday after the motorcycle he was driving struck a van in south Maui.

Jeffrey Lauritzen, a construction worker, was riding on South Kihei Road at about 4 p.m., when the van traveling in the opposite direction turned left onto Uilani Street, police Lt. Jeffrey Tanoue said.

Tanoue said according to witnesses, the motorcycle was traveling at a high rate of speed above the posted limit of 20 mph.

Lauritzen was the ninth traffic fatality on Maui this year, compared to 13 for the same period last year.

LEEWARD OAHU

Police look into fatal shooting in Waipahu

Police are investigating an attempted murder and apparent suicide in Waipahu Wednesday night.

Patrol officers went to a Pupuole Place address just before 10 p.m. on a report of a shooting in progress. When they arrived, they found a 47-year-old man dead of a gunshot wound. They were told the man tried to shoot two other men, ages 23 and 32, before turning the gun on himself.

70-year-old arrested over stolen container

A 70-year-old Waianae man was arrested Wednesday for allegedly trying to sell a stolen 40-foot shipping container.

Representatives of the shipping company told police the container was stolen in May. They said a man in Waianae was attempting to sell it and that the container was on the man's property.

Officers went to the man's Hakimo Road address posing as prospective buyers and arrested the man when he offered to sell it for $7,500. He was arrested on two counts of first-degree theft.