An arrest report for an accused murderer sheds little light on his motive for allegedly shooting to death a father of three last weekend.
According to a police report describing the arrest of Jarvis Rockwell Hung Leung Boots, 30, of Mountain View, few details are available about the circumstances that left a Hilo man dead at the Puainako Town Center.
Based on the report, released last week, there also appears to be no clear correlation between the death of 41-year-old Benjamin Davidson and an incident in Papaikou earlier this month, during which Boots allegedly shot a man multiple times on Old Mamalahoa Highway.
According to the report’s incident summary, a witness in line at the Puainako McDonald’s drive-through heard gunshots at about 4:12 a.m. Dec. 18 and, shortly thereafter, drove past a vehicle with bullet holes in the door.
The driver, Davidson, was slumped over with gunshot wounds in the head and torso. The witness also reported that he saw a white sedan driving away from the scene.
Police checked surveillance footage to determine the make and model of the vehicle, a Mazda MX-6 two-door sedan registered to Boots. However, if the surveillance footage revealed additional information about the cause of the encounter between the shooter and Davidson, it was not included in the police report.
While the motive surrounding Davidson’s death is still unclear, the report has more details about the circumstances of the Papaikou incident.
According to police, the Papaikou incident began shortly after 1 p.m. Dec. 2, when, north of the Papaikou Transfer Station, a man, Anthony Moniz, was salvaging parts from a “burnt shell of a car on the side of the road.”
Moniz later told police that a man driving a white sedan approached him and shouted at him, claiming the burnt-out husk of a vehicle belonged to his cousin.
The man then shot at Moniz through the driver-side window of his vehicle. A .40-caliber Smith and Wesson handgun matching Moniz’s description was later found in Boots’ vehicle when he was arrested last Sunday for the Davidson shooting.
Bullets struck Moniz multiple times, and the shots alerted another man, Juan Lopez, who rode to the scene on a John Deere Gator utility vehicle, according to police.
Moniz, who had taken cover behind the burnt-out vehicle, called to Lopez for help, saying he had been shot twice, whereupon Lopez saw a white sedan make a U-turn on Old Mamalahoa Highway, driving south back toward the scene.
After seeing the sedan’s driver pointing a gun at Lopez through the passenger window, and hearing the driver say he intended to kill him, Lopez jumped from his utility vehicle and heard a pair of gunshots, Lopez later told police.
After hearing the sedan drive away, Lopez saw that his utility vehicle had been shot twice between the rear wheels, directly behind where he had been sitting.
Moniz was taken to Hilo Medical Center in critical condition for his injuries, which included multiple gunshot wounds to the extremities and torso, a rupture of his iliac artery in his pelvis, nerve injuries, a pelvic bone fracture and other internal injuries. Despite his injuries, Moniz on Dec. 18 was able to identify Boots out of a lineup as the person who shot him.
Boots is currently detained without bail on charges of second-degree murder, attempted murder in the first and second degree, terroristic threatening and a litany of firearms and weapons offenses. His next court appearance will be a status hearing Jan. 7.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
