A paranoid Korean War veteran, thinking a policeman is about to arrest him for a crime he didn't commit, grabs the officer's gun and shoots him. More cops appear, so the vet pulls the wounded officer's ammunition belt free and runs into an apartment occupied by a teenage girl, locking himself and the girl inside. McGarrett and HPD's SWAT team arrive at the same time, and the leader of the SWAT team wants to blast his way into the apartment and take down the gunman, who blazes away at targets all over the place. Because somehow the gunman hasn't killed anybody yet, and because McGarrett thinks the gunman might be better off in a mental hospital, McGarrett butts heads with the HPD officer and stalls to buy time to negotiate a peaceful surrender -- although the media circus surrounding the hostage situation immensely complicates the negotiation.
—Peter Harris