A Puna man has been charged with an assortment of offenses stemming from an incident early Monday that injured a police officer attempting to make a traffic stop.
A Puna man has been charged with an assortment of offenses stemming from an incident early Monday that injured a police officer attempting to make a traffic stop.
A second man was charged for allegedly trying to prevent the first man’s arrest.
At 3 p.m. Monday, officers went to a house on the 500 block of East Kahaopea Street in Hilo to arrest a possible suspect, 20-year-old Draven Torres-Souza of Keaau, on unrelated outstanding warrants. While police were attempting to arrest him on the warrants, he caused minor injuries to two officer, according to police.
At the same time, 22-year-old Joshua Domen of Hilo physically tried to prevent a third officer from making the arrest, police said.
None of the officers required treatment.
Both men were arrested and taken to the Hilo police cellblock, where Torres-Souza was charged with failure to appear, contempt of court and violating terms of release on bail. On Tuesday, Torres-Souza appeared in court for the warrants and was then taken to Hawaiʻi Community Correctional Center while detectives continued to investigate the other incidents.
Detectives determined that Torres-Souza had been the operator of a sedan that had collided with a police vehicle shortly after midnight Monday in the “Isles” parking lot off Lihiwai Street as officers were trying to make a traffic stop on the car. After the collision, Torres-Souza fled on foot. One of the officers in that collision was treated at Hilo Medical Center for substantial but non-life-threatening injuries and then released.
At 8 p.m. Tuesday, after conferring with prosecutors, Torres-Souza was charged with resisting an order to stop, first-degree criminal property damage, driving without a license, leaving the scene of an accident involving substantial bodily injury, and three counts of assaulting a police officer. His bail was set at $67,000.
Domen was charged with first-degree hindering prosecution. His bail was set at $2,000.
Both men are scheduled to make their initial court appearances on those charges this afternoon.