Honolulu police investigating three suspicious fires and an attempted one in the Navy housing complex on the Pearl City Peninsula found a spray-painted message that implied the fires were deliberately set and would continue.
Police questioned a 12-year-old boy in connection with fires that damaged cars and homes in Navy housing and a brush fire on the Pearl City Peninsula over the weekend.
Officers investigating the suspected arson cases saw the juvenile male at 3:13 a.m. Monday on Ashley Avenue, near the scene of the previous fires on Saturday and Sunday.
The boy was walking between homes in the Navy housing complex, Honolulu police reported on their Facebook page Monday.
Police said he had a hood over his head, was wearing white socks with no shoes and was walking in a bent-over position as if attempting to hide himself.
When police tried to stop him to ask for identification, the boy fled.
He was found hiding in a garage, questioned and released to his parents.
Four police officers were on a special assignment at the Pearl City Peninsula Navy housing complex to determine whether the fires were intentionally set.
Police are asking for the public’s help in locating witnesses or suspects to the suspicious fires.
All of the suspected arson cases were within a half-mile of each other, but police won’t say whether they are related. Police also would not give details about the message other than it was spray-painted.
At 5:04 a.m. Saturday a vehicle parked in a carport on the 5000 block of Ashley Avenue was set on fire. The fire damaged the vehicle, the carport and attached home. Fire officials said damage was estimated at $4,000.
The other suspicious fires occurred Sunday.
At 3:26 a.m. Sunday another vehicle parked in a four-unit housing complex, a block away at 1127 Lowella Ave., was set on fire. The fire burned the vehicle and caused major damage to the home.
Three adjoining units sustained smoke and water damage, said Agnes Tauyan, Navy spokeswoman.
The fire apparently started in a carport and took nearly an hour to extinguish, according to fire officials. Damage was estimated at $90,000.
Eleven people — a family of four, a family of three and two families of two — were affected, and the Red Cross and military agencies were helping them, Tauyan said.
Five hours later at 8:53 a.m., officers were dispatched to a driveway on Lowella Avenue about a thousand feet away from the second incident and discovered several gas cans and burned wooden torches lying on the driveway.
The suspect poured gasoline around a vehicle and created a trail of gasoline about 75 to 100 feet long. The suspect attempted to light the trail of gasoline but was unsuccessful, police said.
Twelve hours later at 3:17 p.m., officers responded to a report of a fire in an open field next to an abandoned warehouse on Victor Wharf Access Road near the scene of the earlier fires.
The brush fire burned an area approximately 50 by 60 feet. It was located just a few hundred feet from the other fires in a wooded area off Victor Wharf Access Road.
Before the Monday apprehension of the juvenile, fire officials had already determined that the fires on Ashley and Lowella avenues had been intentionally set.
Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300, or *CRIME on a cellphone.
The suspected arson cases also are being investigated by security officials at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
