PAHOA — Police say a hostage situation in Leilani Estates on Tuesday ended just after 2 p.m. after the suspect emerged from a Leilani Avenue home near Hapuu Street and shot himself in the face with a rifle.
According to Lt. Reed Mahuna of the Hilo Vice Section, the man, 33-year-old Jovin Chang of Leilani Estates, was taken into custody and transported by ambulance to Hilo Medical Center.
Mahuna didn’t have any report on Chang’s condition.
The hostages were a 30-year-old woman, and four girls, ages 16, 14, 11 and 9, Mahuna said. They were physically unharmed.
Mahuna said Chang and the hostages were acquainted but didn’t know the relationship.
The Special Response Team — the department’s SWAT unit — and a police negotiator were called to help end the crisis.
Chang allegedly barricaded himself in the home with the hostages after an early morning shooting about 10 blocks away on Nohea Street left a 25-year-old man hospitalized in stable condition.
Puna patrol officers responded to a 5:40 a.m. call and found the wounded man “shot several times about his body,” according to a written statement.
A Nohea street resident who contacted the Tribune-Herald and requested anonymity said the shooting started at about 5:20 a.m. and he called police within a minute.
The man said that from his driveway, he said he heard a woman screaming, “What are you doing? You are going to kill somebody.”
He said he called 911 a second time “urging them to come faster.”
In an audio recording made by the Nohea street resident, a woman could be heard sobbing, then repeatedly screaming, “No!” In a 911 call on the recording, the resident told the dispatcher, “I just called in. Shots fired, a woman screaming. The cops gotta get here now. She’s screaming for her life. I think the guy’s trying to get her in the car.”
The resident told the dispatcher about 15 shots could be heard in a 10-minute period.
As the dispatcher asked questions about the location of the incident, a vehicle could be heard pulling away.
Rob Thommarson, a neighbor of the home where the hostage standoff occurred, said he was awakened “at about 5:45 this morning … with what sounded like gunshots.”
“It sounded like about six single shots were fired, and then it seemed like every once in a while after that there was maybe a shot or so,” Thommarson said.
Police evacuated residents in neighboring homes and closed Leilani Avenue between Highway 130 and Hapuu Street.
Mahuna said that the barricades remained in place late Tuesday afternoon as police continued to investigate at the scene. He didn’t know if the evacuated residents had been allowed to return.
A search of court records turned up no criminal convictions, other than a DUI, for Chang.
Tribune-Herald reporter Tom Callis contributed to this story.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
