Witness tells of
friend’s deathThe man was killed by gunfire
during an alleged robbery
of a pound of marijuana
A man testified yesterday that he pleaded with a gunman moments before gunfire erupted and his friend was killed in a Pearl City parking lot.
"I said, 'Why you gotta do this for? No do this,'" Winston Domingo said he told the accused gunman, Micah Kanahele.
Kanahele, 22, is charged with second-degree murder for the Nov. 1 shooting of Guylan Nuuhiwa during a drug buy in the parking lot of the Pearl City Shopping Center fronting Longs Drugs. Kanahele is also charged with first- and second-degree attempted murder and drug and firearm offenses.
Domingo, who was shot and wounded on Nov. 1, appeared at a preliminary hearing for Kanahele and two other defendants yesterday before District Judge Leslie Hayashi.
Domingo said he had driven his friend Nuuhiwa to the parking lot that night to meet with Kanahele to sell him a pound of marijuana for $1,600. But when Kanahele arrived, he refused the purchase price and offered $1,480 instead.
"Give me the stuff, or else I going shoot you guys," Domingo recalled Kanahele saying repeatedly as he sat in the back seat of Domingo's Honda Accord.
He also said he saw Kanahele pull out a gun.
"We already knew we were gonna be ripped (off) already," Domingo said.
He tried to persuade Nuuhiwa to just give up the marijuana because he had heard of Kanahele's reputation about not backing down.
"Nobody had to die over marijuana," Domingo said yesterday.
Domingo said Kevin Harris, who accompanied Kanahele to the drug buy, was standing outside the front passenger door where Nuuhiwa was seated and began arguing with Nuuhiwa.
Harris punched Nuuhiwa and tried to grab the package of marijuana from his hand, Domingo said.
Kanahele apparently got out of Domingo's Accord and ran around the back of the car to get to where Nuuhiwa and Harris were struggling over the package. Domingo said he saw Kanahele firing his gun toward Nuuhiwa even before he got around to the other side of the car. Nuuhiwa was trying to get out of the car when he was hit.
Domingo said he heard two or three quick pops and saw the flash of the gun's muzzle before he bailed out and fled toward a nearby Chevron station to ask employees to call 911. He was shot several times as he fled but only felt one that struck his upper back. He also heard Harris yelling to Kanahele, "Micah, he's getting away. Shoot 'em again, shoot 'em again."
By the time Domingo returned to his car, Kanahele, Harris and another man who had joined them earlier before the shots rang out -- later identified as Rosalino Ramos -- had left. Nuuhiwa was on the ground bleeding and did not appear to be alive. The bag of marijuana was also gone, Domingo said.
Domingo did not know Kanahele, but had "cruised" with others who were friends with him, he said.
Harris, 26, and Ramos, 22, are charged along with Kanahele with robbery in connection with the shooting. The hearing for Kanahele, Harris and Ramos in Hayashi's courtroom is expected to continue Thursday.
All three defendants and another man also have been charged in connection with the earlier shooting death of Aiea resident Greg Morishima.
Morishima, 49, was gunned down in a friend's Pamoho Place garage by four masked men on Oct. 26.
