'Saving lives': Maui police release dramatic body cam video of Lahaina wildfire rescues
Police in Maui released harrowing body camera footage from the day wildfires tore through Lahaina in August, leaving at least 99 people dead and thousands of people displaced.
The 16 minutes of video released Monday at a news conference showed officers urgently evacuating residents and taking a seriously burned man to a hospital while winds whipped debris and fire closed in on houses.
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said the department was releasing about 20 hours of body camera footage in response to a public records request and wanted to share the 16 minutes' worth ahead of the deadline to provide "context" to all the footage.
"You saw officers saving lives. You saw officers going into houses and getting people out of harm's way ... You saw people doing everything they could," Pelletier said. "MPD did that because it was the right thing to do, because that's what they're trained to do."
Video shows officers racing door-to-door to evacuate residents
The video pieced together clips from throughout the day of Aug. 8, when a combination of powerful winds, dry vegetation and low humidity helped fuel wildfires in West Maui. The cause of the fires is still under investigation. Over 2,000 homes and other structures were burned. In the aftermath, many said power and cellphone outages along with blocked roads complicated efforts to evacuate.
One video showed an officer using a hose to spray water on a shed that caught fire. Others showed officers going door-to-door, sometimes entering homes to make sure residents left safely. Fire can be seen nearing homes as officers worked. Another clip showed officers evacuating about 15 people who had "barricaded" inside a coffee shop.
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Other officers were seen in the videos directing traffic and helped people break or cut open barricades blocking roads. At one point in the videos, an officer puts a severely burned man in the back of his car to take him to the hospital.
"I'm sorry, dude," the officer tells the man. "I'll just take you straight to the hospital."
Some of the law enforcers who were working that day evacuated people while not knowing if their own families were safe. Eleven officers "lost everything, to include family members and their homes," Assistant Chief Keola Tom said Monday.
"This body-worn camera footage makes it very clear and convincing that the Maui Police Department ... went above and beyond," Pelletier said.
Contributing: The Associated Press