MEDIA RELEASE

Dasa Sivam

Big Island police have charged a 64-year-old Glenwood man in connection with a standoff in Puna on Monday.

At 4 p.m. Wednesday (August 22), detectives from the Area I Criminal Investigations Section charged Dasa Sivam with criminal trespass, promoting a detrimental drug and two counts of first-degree terroristic threatening.

He is being held at the Hilo police cellblock pending his initial court appearance scheduled for Thursday afternoon (August 23).

Puna patrol officers responded to a 10:22 a.m. report Monday (August 20) that a man had threatened his neighbors with a machete on Kokokahi Road in the Fern Forrest subdivision in Glenwood.

When police arrived, the suspect barricaded himself inside his house and claimed he had a large machine gun. Officers could hear a large object banging the inside of the door.

The Police Department’s Special Response Team was called to the scene and negotiated all night with the suspect. After hours of negotiation, the suspect emerged from the house shortly before 5 a.m. and a confrontation ensued.

A Special Response Team officer received minor injuries when a stairway he was standing on collapsed.

Dasa Sivam was arrested on suspicion of terroristic threatening and taken to the Hilo police cellblock while detectives from the Area I Criminal Investigations Section continued the investigation.