Hawaii man pulls gun on neighbor checking on lava-threatened home
A Hawaiian hothead pulled a gun on a neighbor who returned to the area to check on his lava-threatened home, according to a report.
John Hubbard evidently reached a boiling point on Tuesday when he aimed his gun at Ethan Edwards and ordered the 32-year-old and his friends to leave the area around their home in Leilani Estates, where molten rock from Kilauea volcano has been flowing for about a month.
Video of the incident posted to Facebook by Edwards shows 61-year-old Hubbard pushing his neighbor, firing at the sky and then aiming the gun.
When the shot goes off, people can be heard yelling out and Edwards can be seen crouching and covering his head with his arms as Edwards aims the gun at him.
“Are you kidding me? Stop!” people can be heard yelling in the background.
Hubbard tells his neighbor to “Get the f–k out of here” as Edwards, who is walking away with his hands up, screams back “I live here!” repeatedly.
“Happy to be alive,” Edwards wrote in the video’s caption. “Be careful out there folks. This situation is really beginning to take its toll psychologically and the bad weather is contributing to emotional tensions. Folks are breaking down.”
Hawaiian Island police arrested Hubbard on Tuesday for assault and took him to the Hilo cellblock, Hawaii News Now reported.
About 2,000 people have been ordered to evacuate their houses and 75 homes have been destroyed. Some have chosen to stay behind to protect their belongings from looters.
Hawaii County’s civil defense administrator said tensions were running high as a result.
“They’ve got this live volcano in their back yard,” Talmadge Magno said. “They feel like, they see strange people in their subdivision, whether it’s people just wanted to go see lava or criminals … and they try to protect stuff.”
“I could see it coming, I know it’s something that happens in a lot of disasters, whether it’s in the shelters or in the communities — a lot of stress, a lot of things are going on there,” he added.