Isaac Mamea, 34, a Native Hawaiian man, spent the late evening of September 20, 2017 in Honolulu's Chinatown, seated outside Maunakea Liquor & Grocery on Maunakea Street when violence found him without warning. Police said the gunman came up on foot and fired multiple times with a handgun, turning an ordinary storefront moment into a frantic rush for help.
As the shooter fled, Mamea was taken to The Queen's Medical Center, but the wounds were too severe; he was pronounced dead shortly after midnight, placing his death in the first hour of September 21 even though the shooting unfolded minutes earlier. The escape, investigators said, was swift and specific: the suspect left in a white Toyota Matrix bearing Hawaiʻi license plate NTW 970, a detail that quickly became a cornerstone of the manhunt. Police later recovered the vehicle, but not the person who had been driving it.
Within days, authorities publicly identified the suspect they believed was responsible: Tiseya Eric Puapuaga. CrimeStoppers Honolulu's release described him as wanted for Murder in the Second Degree and urged tips from anyone who had seen him or knew where he might be hiding, noting he was known to frequent Chinatown, Aʻala Park, and the Keeaumoku area, and that he had ties to Northern California and had previously lived in Sacramento—clues meant to widen the net beyond Oʻahu.
The search did not end quickly. Later reporting described Puapuaga as being extradited back from California in January 2019, and an update posted in 2019 said he had been arrested in connection with the killing, framing the case as one that had stretched across the Pacific and the mainland before tightening again in Honolulu.
