Police are seeking the public’s help in finding two men wanted in separate investigations, including one they describe as “dangerous and may be armed.”
Kahekili John Krause, 18, of Mountain View is wanted in a terroristic threatening and reckless driving incident that police say endangered a police officer Thursday morning in Puna.
Krause is described as part-Hawaiian, 6 feet tall, 145 pounds with brown eyes and short brown hair.
He may be driving a light-colored Honda four-door sedan with a stolen license plate RBX 443. That plate may have since been replaced.
Police say while conducting a search for a reckless driver in a light colored-sedan in Hawaiian Beaches, officers saw a vehicle fitting that description parked on Awa Street. As an officer approached the vehicle, the driver pulled out from the driveway and drove directly toward the officer, who was in his marked subsidized patrol vehicle. To avoid a collision, the officer swerved off the roadway and lost sight of the car.
The officer was uninjured in the incident.
Krause escaped from a Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility officer who was transporting him from Pahoa to the Hilo International Airport in September 2015. Then 17, he remained on the lam for about two weeks until his arrest in Kurtistown.
In a separate case, police are also seeking 26-year-old Kahee Ioane Manuwai of Hilo, who’s wanted for questioning in an auto theft investigation.
He’s described as part-Hawaiian, 5 feet 8 inches tall, 170 pounds with brown eyes and short brown hair.
On Wednesday, Jan. 11, at about 2:36 a.m., officers received a report that a Honda CR-V sport-utility vehicle had been stolen from a parking lot on the 500 block of West Lanikaula Street. Video surveillance footage identified Manuwai as a suspect.
On Friday, Jan. 13, at about 7:40 a.m., a reserve police officer saw the vehicle at a home on Awa Street in Hawaiian Beaches.
When the officer approached the vehicle, the driver, who was identified as Manuwai, fled in the stolen SUV.
About three hours later, the SUV was found burned at the lava viewing area in Kalapana.
Anyone with information on either man’s whereabouts is urged to call the police nonemergency number at 935-3311 or Crime Stoppers at 961-8300.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
