Looting is occurring, Nanawale man says

A man whose Nanawale Estates home has been burglarized twice during the current state of emergency declared due to lava took issue with police assertions that looting isn’t occurring in Puna.

“My first response was anger,” Jordan Nelson said Friday. Nelson twice reported burglaries at his Plumeria Road home, on Sept. 27 and Oct. 8.

“I know this stuff is happening,” he said. “To hear police say it’s not happening, I feel invalidated.”

Police confirmed his reports. Nelson said he was finishing two years worth of construction work on the house with an eye toward selling it.

“With the whole state of emergency and everything, we had the opportunity to go stay at my mom’s house,” he said. “That way, on the weekends, I could go and work on my house. It’s hard to work on a house you’re living in. So we packed up our stuff, our personal belongings, and we moved out. The next day, I went to get some more stuff and that very night we had left, we got robbed.”

Nelson said the first time burglars hit his home, they pilfered solar panels, an Outback inverter, water pump, pressure tank, hot water heater, and clothes washer and dryer.

“They took a $12,000 solar system,” he said. “… They climbed up on the roof and took the solar panels, six big 230-watt panels. … It must have taken them some time; it had to be more than one person.”

Nelson said the second time, the burglars took his doors, smashed bathroom tile to take plumbing fixtures, urinated on the kitchen floor and defecated in the sink.

“Because there’s been a little bit of time, and we’re removed from the situation, removed from the house, we feel OK now. But we felt very, very violated,” he said. “That was our investment; that was our home. We put a lot of money into it, and I did all the labor, so I put a lot of myself into that home. And to see that someone could just come and take it at a time like this, when a lot of other things are happening. It was a really hard blow for us.”

Nelson mentioned a friend who reported a burglary Oct. 29 on Maui Road in Nanawale. That report was confirmed on a police log but the victim wasn’t available.

Police said numbers of burglaries in Puna, which is under a state of emergency declared on Sept. 4 by Mayor Billy Kenoi, have not spiked.

Capt. Robert Wagner, commander of the Hilo Criminal Investigation Division, said 68 reported home burglaries occurred in Puna in August. He described that as “a high number,” and added reported burglaries decreased to 41 in September and 33 in October.

Wagner described the current situation as “business as usual” for burglars in Puna and Hilo and said vacant homes are more likely to be hit.

“Criminals will cruise around casing houses going, ‘Hey, look at this house. Maybe they’re snowbirds. There doesn’t appear to be nobody here.’ Somehow the threat level for them is so much less,” he said. “They’re not going to encounter anybody going into that house. That’s what they want. And they’re likely not going to be discovered anytime soon.”

Deputy Police Chief Paul Ferreira told the Tribune-Herald Wednesday that burglaries of vacant homes has long been a problem here.

“We’ve had foreclosures, a lot of homes have been vacant and those homes sometimes get burglarized,” he said. “That’s been going on long before the lava.”

Perhaps a disconnect between authorities and the public is how looting is defined.

Media images have long portrayed looting as something immediate, widespread and rampant, such as the smashing of storefront windows and plundering of merchandise seen during urban riots.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in my police career here,” Wagner said.

To those whose homes have been burglarized, however, looting takes on a more personal definition.

“I have friends and know people whose homes have been robbed, who didn’t report it because they don’t believe the police will do much about it,” Nelson said. “They’re not big burglaries like what happened to me, but it’s real.”

On Thursday, Police arrested and charged a 33-year-old Honomu man, Blaine L.K. Faris III, for an unrelated burglary and car theft in Nanawale. According to court documents filed by police, Faris is accused of breaking into a Kehau Road home while the owner was on the mainland, stealing his car keys and then taking his car.

Faris was charged with burglary of a dwelling during a state of emergency, which is a Class A felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison with no possibility of probation, plus auto theft, a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Faris made his initial court appearance Friday before Hilo District Judge Harry Freitas, who maintained his $60,000 bail and set up a preliminary hearing for Wednesday at 2 p.m.

Wagner and Ferreira both said those who experience or know of burglaries should report them to police instead of going on social media and spreading what Wagner referred to as “panic” by using the term “looting.”

Faris is the third person to be charged with burglary of a dwelling during an emergency since the current lava crisis began. Deputy Prosecutor Mitch Roth reiterated his office will charge those who are caught and prosecuted under the statute, which carries the stiffer penalties.

“Nobody should be victimized,” he said. “… If we do catch people doing those kinds of offenses, we will be going for enhanced penalties for those types of crimes.”

Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune- herald.com.