Posted on: Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Man accused of crime spree

Advertiser Staff

A 37-year-old man was arrested Sunday night after allegedly robbing and threatening several people at an apartment complex in Waipi'o Gentry.

Police said a 43-year-old woman who had been visiting a resident at the complex was walking back to her car when a man confronted her with a shirt wrapped around his hand.

The man told the woman he had a gun and took the woman's cell phone and car keys. He told the woman to get into the car with him but she refused, police said.

The man told her to go back to the apartment she had come from. He followed her and tried to force his way in when the two reached the doorway, police said. The commotion awakened a man who lives at the apartment and he confronted the suspect, who ran to another part of the complex, climbed up to a second-floor lanai and approached three men inside the second apartment.

He again pretended to have a gun under his shirt and took a cell phone and cash from the second group of victims before running to a third apartment and entering through an unlocked door.

There, he demanded items from yet another man, took his car keys and ran from the apartment with the apartment resident in pursuit. The robber threw down the car keys and kept running, police said.

Arriving officers spotted the suspect and were able to catch up with him at the corner of Pa'a'ono and Pa'awalu streets after a brief foot chase.