Police Beat
Advertiser Staff
Kaua'i police arrest man living in forest
LIHU'E, Kaua'i — Police and state conservation agents said they used a helicopter to arrest a man who had been living for as long as two years deep in the Kaua'i forest, where he grew marijuana and hunted with dogs.
"He was in the middle of nowhere," said Kaua'i police Lt. Alejandre Quibilan.
The 46-year-old man was being held at the Kaua'i jail on $17,900 bail on 11 charges.
He had a campsite far from roads on Honopu Ridge, which runs from the Koke'e State Park down to Na Pali Coast. Officers went in by helicopter March 5. The barking of the man's dogs led officers to his hiding place.
Two sex-assault suspects arrested
Two of three men wanted on warrants charging them with sexual assaults on juvenile girls were arrested last weekend. All three were featured on a CrimeStoppers bulletin released Friday.
Sheldon Manoha, 29, surrendered to police Saturday at HPD's Alapa'i station. He was wanted on a $10,000 warrant charging him with third-degree sexual assault on two girls, ages 12 and 13, last June.
At 4:30 p.m. Saturday, a tip led police to a Puhawai Road residence in Wai'anae where fugitive Florencio "Flor" Gandule, 35, was arrested. Gandule is charged with sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl last year.
A third suspect, 52-year-old Matias Ulangca Jr., was still at large yesterday. Ulangca, of no permanent address, is accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in December.
Link suspected in armed robberies
A series of recent armed robberies in the Pawa'a, Kaka'ako, lower Makiki and Ala Moana areas appear to be linked to the same suspects, police said yesterday.
A man threatened a security officer with a knife at a Hobron Lane hotel Sunday evening and fled with a cellular telephone. The officer discovered the man in the hotel's office at 11:09 p.m. The suspect fits the description of a man involved in an armed robbery March 2 in the parking lot of a Ke'eaumoku Street restaurant.
On Saturday, three men forced their way into the Kaka'ako office of TCA Wireless on Kawaiaha'o Street and robbed a man of his wallet, car and cash. They fled with 50 high-end cellular telephones.
Three men also were involved in last Tuesday's holdup at the Zippy's Restaurant in Makiki, in which a man was robbed of his car. Police believe that robbery is connected to another robbery on the same day on Kamoku Street.
