UPDATE: Suspect Charged after Vehicle Collision, Gunfire in Puna

Updated 5:00 p.m. on August 23 with details of the incident and photo of one of the suspects.

Two men were arrested in Puna on Wednesday evening, August 21 by police on suspicion of reckless endangering after officers responded to reports of shots being fired in a residential neighborhood.

Shortly after 9 p.m. police arrived at a location on Nenue Street in the Hawaiian Beaches subdivision, where they arrested 63-year-old Pahoa resident Peter Lopes and 45-year-old Peter Lopes Jr.

UPDATE:

One of the two men has been charged by Police with nine offenses in connection with the incident.

Peter Lopes Jr., 45, of Hawaiian Beaches was charged at 3:15 p.m. Friday, August 23 with first-degree reckless endangering, abuse of a family/household member, three counts of ownership prohibited, three counts of place to keep and leaving the scene of an accident.

Lopes’s bail is set at $123,000. He is being held at the Hilo police cellblock pending a court appearance on Monday, August 26.

Officers conducted a search warrant on his home Thursday, recovering two firearms and ammunition. Because Lopes is a convicted felon, it is illegal for him to possess weapons or ammo.

Investigators determined that Lopes assaulted a 42-year-old woman on Wednesday, August 21 during a domestic dispute in Hawaiian Paradise Park. Lopes reportedly left the home, then collided with another vehicle.

Lopes then left the scene of the accident, after which he went to a home in Hawaiian Beaches and discharged a firearm.

The other man arrested after the shots were fired, 63-year-old Peter Lopes Sr., was released pending further investigation.