ORIGINAL: neon03se

I have been watchin Blu Ray movies lately and have noticed that (on my tv at least, not sure about any others) that there is somewhat of a picture quality difference. The settings on my tv have not changed since I had the HD Dvd player, and for some reason the HD DVD movies looked a bit "grainy", and I have yet to see that on blu ray, it looks sharper for some reason.

ORIGINAL: swimmer07

on the campaign for COD4 in the level where you rescue "war pig" or what ever, where are the two lap tops with the enemy information??

ORIGINAL: Advertiser Staff


A store security camera took a picture of the man who committed an armed robbery at the Checkout Convenience Store on Kuhio Avenue.

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Police released this sketch of the robber.

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A man wearing a camouflage jacket threatened six people with a semi-automatic assault rife and fired six shots during a robbery early today in Waikiki.

Police are investigating the possibility the Dec. 26 armed robbery of Kalapawai Market in Kailua was committed by the same man.

No one was injured in today's 12:48 a.m. robbery at the Checkout Convenience Store at 2463 Kuhio Ave.

Police said the man entered the convenience store and demanded money from a female cashier. The robber fired a shot in the air when the woman could not open the register. She then opened a second register and the man fled with an undisclosed amount of cash.

On his way out, he allegedly threatened five adults and fired five shots into the air. One of the rounds shattered a sliding door of a 26th-floor unit at the Pacific Monarch hotel at 2427 Kuhio Ave.

Anyone with information on the suspect can call Honolulu CrimeStoppers at 955-8300 or *CRIME on a cellular phone.

ORIGINAL: Advertiser Staff

Woman clubbed to death in street

KAILUA — A man clubbed a woman to death with a shotgun in the middle of a residential street yesterday as horrified onlookers watched the victim crawl and scream on the roadway.

The man also struck an area resident who tried to intervene, sending him to a hospital.

Police last night arrested a suspect in Kane'ohe and opened a murder investigation. Police said the suspect, Alapeti Siuanu Tunoa Jr., 30, of Salt Lake, is the 30-year-old victim's former boyfriend and father of her child.

"He hit her two or three times like he was using an axe," said witness Ted Hardin, describing the assailant's downward, wood-chopping-type blows to the head delivered with the stock of a shotgun.

The attack took place on Maluniu Avenue near Kawainui Street, several blocks from Kailua's business district.

"Once I saw him hit her, I knew it wasn't an accident. This was domestic violence," witness Samantha Sletten said.

Hardin and Sletten said the incident began about 5:45 p.m. when they were driving south on Maluniu Avenue. A black Ford Explorer in front of them, also traveling south, was going an estimated 60 mph and ran a stop sign, they said.

The Explorer rammed the back of a white sedan, spinning it around so it faced the opposite direction.

A woman got out of the white car. The man in the Explorer ran after her and punched her, Hardin and Sletten said.

The man took the shotgun out of his vehicle and swung it at the woman. A neighbor tried to intercede but Tunoa pointed the gun at him and told the man to "step back," the witnesses said.

The assailant chased the woman around the car, caught her and hit her in the stomach with the barrel of the shotgun. The male neighbor trying to help was struck in the back of the head with the shotgun butt, the witnesses said.

"She started crawling and he went after her," Sletten said. "She was screaming." That's when the assailant hit her repeatedly in the head with the shotgun, then drove off in the Explorer.

The woman was taken in critical condition to Castle Medical Center, where she died at 6 p.m.

The male neighbor who tried to help the victim was taken to Castle in stable condition, according to Honolulu Emergency Services spokesman Bryan Cheplic.

Police arrested Tunoa at 7:05 p.m. in Kane'ohe after officers found him hiding in the yard of a home at Likeke Place. Second-degree murder charges were pending last night.

Police closed Maluniu Avenue last night and brought in portable lights to illuminate the crime scene. The white car was in the street. Police said Tunoa, who is 6 feet 2 and 340 pounds, allegedly went to Maluniu Avenue yesterday and waited for the woman to pick up her child at a babysitter's home.

According to Hawai'i Criminal Justice Center records, Tunoa has two prior convictions: first-degree robbery in July 1996 and second-degree robbery in July 1995. It was the second homicide this year on O'ahu, and both are believed to be domestic violence-related.

ORIGINAL: Advertiser Staff

Suspect babysat toddler thrown onto H-1
A man threw a boy he sometimes babysat off the Miller Street pedestrian overpass today to his death, then calmly walked away and smoked a cigarette in a surreal, gruesome crime that shocked police and witnesses. Police took Matthew Higa, 23, who listed no local address, into custody in connection with the death. Records show he has four outstanding misdemeanor warrants.

Police said he occasionally babysat the child, but apparently was not related to him. The child's identity was not released yesterday, and police did not say where the child lived.

Police said one or two cars struck the boy after the 30-foot fall from the overpass at Miller Street and Magellan Avenue.

Kraig Hengst was working in an apartment garage across the street from the pedestrian overpass where the baby was thrown, and saw a man "toss the baby" into traffic about 11:40 p.m. Hengst said he had seen the same man moments earlier walking in the area near the overpass, but it's unclear which direction he came from.

"I saw the baby high in the air. I thought it was a doll at first," said Hengst, visibly shaken. Hengst, 19, said Higa was holding the child on the overpass in one arm. Then, he "tossed it into the air." At least one vehicle hit the toddler.

The toddler was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:07 p.m.

The boy landed in the far right lane.

Police closed all westbound lanes of the H-1 Freeway from the Kapi'olani Boulevard off-ramp to the Pali Highway off-ramp for nearly five hours to investigate the scene, setting off traffic jams on thoroughfares and side streets alike.

The freeway was reopened about 4:30 p.m.

After the baby was thrown, witnesses said they saw the man walking calmly away toward Prospect Street, smoking a cigarette. When he was out of sight, Hengst and a few friends went to the pedestrian overpass to see what had been thrown.

When they realized it was a child, they followed the man on foot and on a bike and called police, giving officers a description of the man and leading responding police officers to the suspect hiding in some bushes near 513 Prospect Street.

Witnesses said the man was quiet when he was arrested. But after a few minutes, while sitting on the road with handcuffs on, he started yelling loudly. "Thank you for everything you have done for my family," the suspect said, repeatedly.

Sam Durham, 20, said after he saw a man throw the child, the suspect was in no hurry to flee the scene. "He was just walking," Durham said. "He wasn't running." Durham also said the man had a "1,000-yard stare". "The guy was messed up," Durham said.

Police did not release details on where the suspect was before the death.

But his hospital garments, a teal short-sleeve top and matching shorts, led to questions about whether he had been released from a medical facility.

The Queen's Medical Center, the nearest facility with a mental health wing, would not say whether Higa had been a patient previously or had been at the hospital yesterday.

Queen's spokeswoman Rebecca Pollard said in a statement yesterday that the hospital did not have any missing patients. She also said that, "we have not and do not discharge any patients in a clinically unstable condition." But while Higa apparently was not missing from the hospital yesterday, police said he had been a patient there before and had been admitted as recently as last month after an incident at a Honolulu car dealership in which he locked himself in a car and refused to get out until officers were called to the scene.

Queen's spokeswoman Nicole Pickens said she could not comment on Higa's history as a mental patient at the facility even if police confirmed he had been taken there and provided specific dates. Pickens also declined to comment if Higa was wearing clothes similar to those worn by mental patients in the hospital.

Capt. Frank Fujii, spokesman for the Honolulu Police Department, also declined to comment on whether Higa had been hospitalized recently or where he came from.

Higa graduated from Roosevelt High in 2003.

A classmate said she remembered him as "quiet and weird." After the killing, police could not immediately identify the toddler who died. Worried that he may have been snatched from nearby homes or child care centers, they went door-to-door about noon, to see whether anyone was missing a child. Day care centers in Honolulu were also asked to account for their children.