Video surveillance tapes recorded the morning of a fatal shooting in Chinatown have apparently been recorded over and are not available, a defense attorney for one man charged in the murder case said today.

Police and prosecutors said tapes made March 28 by the network of remote-controlled video cameras did not contain images of the 4:10 a.m. shooting of Joseph Peneueta.

Myles Breiner, lawyer for Zorro Rye, one of the men charged with murdering Peneueta, said in court this morning he has been informed that the city's Chinatown video surveillance system automatically re-records over old tapes and that's what happened with the March 28 tapes.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Sean Sanada stressed that the March 28 tapes did

not contain footage of the shooting.

Breiner said the re-recording was not the fault of Honolulu police but he asked the prosecutor's office to take steps to assure that such evidence, including videos or still photographs shot by the public and turned into police, are protected.

"The state is making every effort to preserve evidence," Sanada said.

Police detectives "are essentially working around the clock" on the case, said Sanada.

The city has responded to recent violence in Chinatown by proposing expansion of the 26-camera surveillance network now in place there.

And police have asked for volunteers to help monitor the cameras.

Peneueta, 35, was shot to death near the intersection of River and Pauahi streets. Charged with second-degree murder in that case are Rye, 24, and Iosefa Pasene, 21.

Five days later, an associate of Rye and Peneueta, Antonius Toloai, was stabbed four times in the stomach near the site of the Peneueta murder.

Pasene, Rye and Toloai are all from the San Francisco area. Police have described the violence as part of a turf dispute between drug gangs from San Francisco and Honolulu.