Maui man arrested after high-speed chase in California
Kevin Kealoha also suspected in shooting in Nevada
KEVIN KEALOHA
The Associated Press and The Maui News
LAS VEGAS — An armed man arrested in California after allegedly ramming a deputy’s vehicle with a stolen car is also suspected in a carjacking, police chase and road-rage shoot-ing that led to the lockdown of a university campus in Las Vegas, authorities said Friday.
On Maui, Kevin Michael Kealoha, 34, is wanted for several contempt-of-court warrants and an arrest warrant for promoting a dangerous drug in the first degree, said Maui police spokesman Lt. Gregg Okamoto.
Kealoha was on the run from Nevada authorities late Thursday when he stole a Honda Civic at gunpoint at a California gas station and led deputies on a winding high-speed pursuit, said Cindy Bachman, spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department in San Bernardino County. The Civic crashed into a fence, and then Kealoha intentionally rammed it into a deputy’s car before being arrested, Bachman said.
Earlier, Kealoha allegedly carjacked a Chevrolet Cruze before dawn Thursday in the Las Vegas area, investigators there said.
When the Nevada Highway Patrol attempted to pull over the Cruze for unrelated reasons, the car sped off and eluded troopers chasing it on Highway 95.
Then around 10:30 a.m., police were called to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for a reported shooting. Police said a woman with her 11-year-old daughter drove her pickup onto the campus to get away from the Cruze after it started tailing her. The driver of the Cruze fired seven to nine rounds at the pickup before speeding off, authorities said.
The gunfire triggered a campuswide lockdown, but no one was injured in what the woman described as a possible road-rage incident.
The Cruze was later found abandoned in suburban Henderson, Nev.
Authorities were able to tie the shooting to both the earlier carjacking and the highway chase — and they named Kealoha as the main suspect. Police said they believe he had been stealing cars in Las Vegas since Tuesday.
Officials in California and Nevada said they expect charges against him to include attempted murder, robbery, grand larceny, carjacking and attempted kidnapping, among other offenses.
He is expected to be arraigned in California on Monday, Bachman said. Eventually he’s likely to be extradited to Nevada, she said.
She didn’t know if he has an attorney.
Kealoha, who had been living in Kihei, has a criminal history in Hawaii of more than 70 arrests and about 30 convictions. His convictions include multiple counts of forgery and theft, fraudulent use of a credit card, unauthorized control of a propelled vehicle, second-degree criminal damage, reckless driving, resisting an order to stop a motor vehicle, driving without a license and leaving the scene of an accident causing damage.
In March 2015, he completed five years’ probation on charges involving two stolen vehicles and a police chase from Kahului to Puunene to Paia in August 2009. Police said a stolen car driven by Kealoha hit a police patrol car and three other vehicles while he fled from police in Paia.
- KEVIN KEALOHA





