Police are seeking a 19-year-old Pahoa man for questioning in connection with a shooting incident Saturday afternoon near the Glenwood transfer station — an individual who is out on bond for his alleged role in a previous shooting incident involving a stolen county truck, which was later found torched.
Eric Wilson Jr. “should be considered armed and dangerous,” police said Monday evening. Police caution members of the public from approaching Wilson, who is described as 5 feet 6 inches tall, 140 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
Officers responding to the 1 p.m. report of a single gunshot fired found a 21-year-old woman who apparently was shot in the neck.
Police say the shot is thought to have been fired from a white sedan which fled in an unknown direction. Officers learned the victim and suspect might have been involved in “an encounter” just prior to the shooting, according to a written police statement.
The woman was taken to Hilo Medical Center in stable condition. She has since been released.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact Detective Jesse Kerr at 961-2377 or jesse.kerr@hawaiicounty.gov, or call Crime Stoppers at 961-8300.
Wilson is currently out on $16,000 bail for allegedly firing a shot April 24 in Hawaiian Paradise Park from the window of a county truck stolen from the Mass Transit Agency baseyard in Hilo two days earlier.
Court documents filed by police state Wilson told police he fired the shot to scare away several people, whom he said were attempting to stop the truck.
The shooting incident occurred on 29th Avenue at the corner of Paradise Drive.
Police found the truck, a 2016 Ford F-350 utility box truck with a lift gate, set afire and abandoned a couple of hours later on Mailenani Road in the Fern Forest subdivision.
Wilson faces charges of first-degree reckless endangering, first-degree terroristic threatening and three firearms offenses, all felonies, for the previous incident.
A 25-year-old Hilo man, Jeremy Kalehua Rafael, was later arrested and charged with the theft of the $73,000 truck.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
