Suspect charged in
Hilo carjacking

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO >> Police have charged a man shot by an officer during a carjacking incident south of Hilo last week with kidnapping and other crimes. It was the same incident in which another carjacking suspect committed suicide.

Keola Nathen Kanae, 19, of Paradise Park subdivision is being held without bail at police headquarters.

Kanae was shot in the chest at Ainaloa subdivision on June 14. An officer shot once as Kanae rapidly emerged from the hijacked car while a shot was fired inside the car. The man inside had pointed a sawed-off rifle at police.

Kanae was released from Hilo Hospital yesterday and immediately charged with the kidnapping of the woman driver, 64, and her male passenger, 65.

He was also charged with two counts of terroristic threatening and two counts of use of a firearm in a felony. He was already on probation for a previous conviction for terroristic threatening, police said.

Police are also investigating a possible connection to an incident on June 9, the Saturday before the confrontation with police, in which several shots were fired at a housewarming party in Paradise Park, they said.

In the June 14 confrontation, police later determined that the first shot heard was fired by Kanae's accomplice, Shaun "Mika" Thompson, 20, who wounded himself in the face with a shot from a sawed-off .30 caliber rifle.

On hearing the shot, and with Kanae approaching an officer rapidly with his hands not visible, the officer shot Kanae once, police said.

After that, another shot was fired in the car, which police determined was Thompson firing a fatal shot at his head.

Police said following the shooting of Kanae by the officer that it appeared to be justified.

Since then, police have reconstructed the events of the confrontation using officers who participated in it, said Assistant Chief Wendell Paiva.

He declined to say what conclusions were drawn from the reconstruction.

A standard internal investigation of the police shooting is continuing and the officer who fired the shot at Kanae remains on leave, Paiva said.

Four officers were at Ainaloa during the confrontation because they were responding to a report of an earlier gunshot. Police gave no new information yesterday on that shot.