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Man charged with PPD and property damage after “random act of violence”

American Samoa District Court
oey@samoanews.com

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — On Thursday morning, June 1, 2023, the Tafuna Police Substation received a call from an employee at TSM Mart in Tafuna requesting assistance regarding an individual, later identified as Dennis Elisara, who was allegedly causing a disturbance in their store. 

On that same day, a video of the assailant was making rounds on Facebook of the incident that showed the defendant causing a disturbance at the store.

Court filings indicate that on June 1, 2023 at 7a.m., Elisara caused a disturbance inside the TSM store by yelling and shouting profanities and stating that he is the owner of the building, which alarmed the three TSM employees that were present during the incident. 

Another employee, a male, stated that he escorted Elisara out of the store, and then a few seconds later, as the employees were cleaning their working area, the defendant ran back inside the store with two big rocks and threw it towards the cashier area, damaging three of the store’s touch screen monitors in the cashier’s area. 

The defendant threw the rocks directly towards where two of the female employees were standing and luckily they were able to avoid being hit. The employees stated they both were shocked and scared during the incident mostly because of how random this alleged act of violence was. 

The manager of TSM Mart provided a rough estimation of the damaged properties as $1,350, as each monitor costs $350. Elisara was then apprehended and transported to TPS for booking. During his apprehension, officers detected a strong odor of alcohol on the suspect’s person.

His initial hearing was on Friday, June 2, 2023. Elisara is being charged with 2 counts, one count of public peace disturbance and one count of property damaged in the third degree.

Elisara is currently being held on bail of $1,000.