Big Island police uprooted 1,999 marijuana plants on Wednesday and Thursday, 9 and 10 June 2004, during a Counter Cannabis Field Operation in East Hawaii.[1] East Hawaii vice officers took plants ranging from seedlings to five feet tall in Puna and South Hilo, and executed a search warrant in the Hawaiian Acres subdivision that yielded 71 plants but no arrests.[1][2] The Honolulu Star-Bulletin confirmed the two-day haul and the warrant seizure two days later.[2]
Shots at the helicopter
Hawaii Air National Guard pilots doing reconnaissance over the Leilani Estates subdivision in Puna reported that two projectiles of an unknown type were launched at their helicopter.[1][3] Patrol officers traced the launch site to a nearby home, where they found the suspect still in the area and fireworks rockets close by.[1] The man, 46-year-old Puna resident Harry E. Williams, told police he had been celebrating the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan.[1][3]
Williams was arrested for reckless endangering and held in the Hilo police cellblock, and East Hawaii detectives conferred with the Federal Bureau of Investigation about possible federal prosecution.[1][3] The eradication itself produced no other arrests.[1]
