Snake found during search for alleged delinquents

The boys are suspected of injuring two Ala Moana Center security guards Saturday night

Honolulu police were not expecting to find a 41-inch-long ball python yesterday when they entered a Salt Lake home looking for two teenage boys suspected of multiple crimes.

The 16-year-old boys were not around, but the snake, inside a 20-gallon glass aquarium, was an easy catch.

The officers seized the snake and turned it over to state Department of Agriculture officials.

Police arrested the two teenage boys a little later -- one at another Salt Lake address and the other in Halawa, and recovered a stolen car.

"I think the good news is we got the snake off the street also," said Capt. Frank Fujii, Honolulu Police Department spokesman.

The boys are suspected of injuring two Ala Moana Center security guards Saturday night by repeatedly ramming the guards' golf cart with a stolen car.

The boy arrested in Salt Lake is from Makaha. He faces charges of attempted murder, reckless endangering, auto theft and driving without a license. The other boy, from Halawa, was arrested as a runaway and for two counts of auto theft.

Both are in a juvenile detention facility pending charges. Fujii said police hope to charge them as quickly as possible to get them off the streets, either for rehabilitation or incarceration.

"The reason for that is we believe the actions of these juveniles on Saturday were callous and menacing," Fujii said.

Fujii said the security guards, a 56-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman, spotted the boys acting suspiciously just before 8 p.m. When they approached the boys in their cart, the boys jumped into the stolen car, rammed the cart multiple times and fled.

The security guards were taken to a nearby hospital where they were treated and released.

As for the python, it is illegal to import them or possess them in Hawaii, and agriculture officials have opened an investigation.

Ball pythons are not venomous and many are kept as pets on the mainland. Ball pythons can grow up to six feet in length and there is evidence that the confiscated snake is still growing.

It had shed its skin within the past two days, said Keevin Minami , Department of Agriculture land vertebrate specialist.