A 26-year-old Volcano woman will be sentenced later this month for multiple robberies and a brazen daylight parking lot incident in which two police officers discharged their service weapons.
Appearing via video from Hawaii Community Correctional Center, Tearon Pacheco-Fernandez entered guilty pleas to two charges of second-degree robbery, one charge of first-degree burglary, and two firearms offenses in relation to separate robberies at the Target store and Burger King on East Makaala Street in Hilo and a residential burglary in Panaewa — all occurring on March 6.
Pacheco-Fernandez also pleaded no contest to two charges of first-degree criminal property damage, first-degree terroristic threatening, and resisting an order to stop in connection with an incident in the parking lot at KTA Super Stores on Puainako Street on Nov. 27, 2019, as well as being accomplice to third-degree theft at a Puna residence between May 19 and May 20, 2019.
In a plea deal with prosecutors, Pacheco-Fernandez, who has no prior felony convictions, agreed to the maximum 10-year prison term when she is sentenced by Hilo Circuit Judge Peter Kubota on Jan. 12. The plea agreement also stipulates that Pacheco-Fernandez will serve at least 40 months before becoming eligible for parole.
In the KTA incident — which occurred at about noon in a crowded parking lot the day before Thanksgiving — Pacheco-Fernandez was at the wheel of a stolen Toyota Tacoma pickup truck and refused to get out of the truck when ordered to by police.
Instead, Pacheco-Fernandez drove toward Officer Victor McLellan of the Special Enforcement Unit.
McLellan fired three rounds into the Tacoma’s driver side door.
Pacheco-Fernandez steered hard to the right and hit a white Ford F-250 pickup truck about 10 feet away from McLellan, according to a court document filed by police, and “came to a screeching (halt) as it entered the adjacent Jack in the Box parking lot.”
Thinking Pacheco-Fernandez might be injured, McLellan approached the Tacoma, and Pacheco-Fernandez “reversed at a high rate of speed” toward McLellan and sideswiped a Toyota Camry driven by a 71-year-old man.
The driver of the Camry was unhurt.
Hilo Patrol Officer Shane Hanley, fearing for the safety of the Camry’s driver, fired six shots at the Tacoma “to attempt to stop the threat posed” by Pacheco-Fernandez.
After striking the Camry with the stolen pickup truck, Pacheco-Fernandez sped out of the parking lot toward Kilauea Avenue and escaped in the Puna-bound direction, police said.
Pacheco-Fernandez remains in custody at HCCC.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.