Hilo hostage standoff ends peacefully

Advertiser Staff

HILO, Hawai'i — An 18-hour standoff between Hilo police and an armed fugitive barricaded in a room at the Hawaii Naniloa Resort ended yesterday morning without incident, police said.

David Field gave himself up yesterday morning. Police photo

Police said the incident began shortly after Field checked into a second-floor room at the Naniloa on Hilo's Banyan Drive with a 19-year-old woman.

Authorities had been seeking Field to serve him with arrest warrants for revocation of probation and contempt of court, and authorities received a tip that Field has been seen at the hotel, Thomas said.

As the woman and Field stepped out of their room Thursday, Field saw police officers and ran down the hall and onto a second-floor balcony, police said. He then broke a plate glass window, jumped up to an overhang on the third floor, broke another plate glass window and disappeared back into the hotel, police said.

Field somehow reached the eighth floor, where he allegedly wielded a .25-caliber semi-automatic handgun as he took as a hostage a 51-year-old Maui man who had just checked into the hotel, police said.

Police said Field barricaded himself and the hostage in the Maui man's room, and the standoff began when police located him at about 6:30 p.m.

Authorities called in the police Special Response Team and hostage negotiators, and evacuated many of the 300 hotel guests.

At about 1 a.m. yesterday negotiators persuaded Field to release the hostage unharmed, and later yesterday morning convinced him to give himself up without further incident.

After Field surrendered, he was taken to Hilo Medical Center for treatment of injuries he received as he fled from police.

Police are holding Field pending further investigation. Police say he may be charged with kidnapping, terroristic threatening, possession of a firearm in commission of a felony, being a felon in possession of a firearm and other offenses.