Kauai Man Hunt

In a very un-Kauai-like unfortunate incident, a tourist was forcibly thrown from a 15 foot cliff by a crazy man out at Kalalau earlier this week. I don't want to post his mug shot here - it's a disturbing photo - but you can read the news article here if you want to see his picture. I haven't seen or heard a detailed story that makes any sense as to why this happened. The woman is recovering in hospital and family is here now.

The Kauai police are out in force looking for this creep. Ke'e beach and the Kalalau Trail are now closed to the public. (My Hanakapi'ai Falls hike on Saturday was, fortunately, the day before this happened.) Today working at Limahuli garden I saw the blockade just past the garden, and while working we heard low-flying helicopters (not tour copters) presumably part of the man hunt.

At Hanalei Pizza, Shawn the pizza chef said they had seen the suspect in there many times previous to the incident. Even then he stood out as a creepy character and emanated a scary demeanor. Midday several police units were visible in town (very unusual) and one went through with sirens on (presumably related but don't know).

Also overheard that the authorities were crawling all over Kalalau and in the process writing tickets to the many people out there without proper permits. I wonder actually how often them manage to collect penalties on those tickets, or what good it does. They try to control against overcrowding out there but it's so inaccessible it's very challenging; I'm not sure that anyone complains about it though who's actually out there.