A Maui police standoff with a 22-year-old attempted- murder suspect in a Kahului house continued into Thursday night after another man walked out of the building in the afternoon.
Police said the man was not a hostage, and no person other than the suspect remained in the house.
Maui Police Department spokesman Lt. Wayne Ibarra said the man walked out of the single-family house on Opukea Street at about 2:30 p.m.
The suspect, Josiah Okudara, had access to the house and took refuge there at about 1 p.m. Wednesday, Ibarra said. Police have sought him for the July 2010 shooting of a man in Wailuku.
Ibarra said police were still negotiating with Okudara Thursday night.
He said gunshots were heard inside the home at 8:22 p.m. Thursday.
Ibarra said several shots were fired "inside the residence" at about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday after police established a perimeter.
Police fired no shots, he said.
"It’s not a hostage situation," he emphasized.
On Wednesday night, two females and a child were in the home and left the residence voluntarily, he said.
Police had power to the home cut off and closed Hoomoku Street, and the SWAT team evacuated three or four surrounding houses.
The American Red Cross opened a shelter at midnight at the Kahului Community Center Annex on Uhu Street.
Thirteen residents stayed at the shelter Wednesday night, and an additional five arrived Thursday morning, according to Maui Red Cross Director Michele Liberty.
"We’re going to keep this place open as long as they need us," said Liberty.
All schools in the surrounding area were open Thursday, the Department of Education’s Maui district office reported.
After a year of eluding law enforcement, Okudara was tracked down by U.S. marshals.
In May, Maui police and CrimeStoppers asked for the public’s help in finding Okudara, who is wanted for allegedly attempting to kill a man last summer.
Police say Okudara was indicted on a charge of first-degree attempted murder in the shooting of a 30-year-old man following what witnesses described as a confrontation among several people on Olena Street in Wailuku at about 10:30 p.m. July 24, 2010. The victim suffered a gunshot wound to his left thigh.
Okudara is wanted on two grand jury warrants with bail totaling $550,000.
Okudara also is wanted as a "person of interest" in a car crash that killed 22-year-old Tiare Franco of Haiku on May 14. Franco was thrown from a pickup truck that plunged 75 feet down a cliff off Kahekili Highway near Waihee Elementary School.
The truck was traveling north on Kahekili Highway when it ran off the road on a curve and plunged off a steep embankment, police said.
Okudara is 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs 180 pounds and has 96793, the Wailuku ZIP code, tattooed on his neck.
Okudara has been convicted of misdemeanor offenses for resisting an order to stop while operating a vehicle, driving without a license and third- degree criminal property damage. His record also includes three petty misdemeanors for harassment, reckless driving and fourth-degree criminal property damage.
