Excellent work by Gordon Y.K. Pang and Michael Tsai, along with Craig Gima and Rob Shikina, in pulling together lots of information on the fatal shooting involving a federal agent in Honolulu for APEC. Their article appears in today’s Star-Advertiser.
They were able to background the alleged shooter through online sources while official sources remained silent, and combine those details with on the ground reporting.
They also captured an incredible scene at the victim’s home, where friends lash out at “the (expletive) haole.”
Outside Elderts’ Kuaaina Way house Saturday night, about two dozen young men gathered to remember their fallen friend. Stunned and angry, they stood in the front yard and exchanged what scant information they had about the incident over beers and blasting reggae.
“The (expletive) haole wen’ kill Kollin,” said one young man who declined to identify himself. “That’s what happened.”
With all the political, administrative, and hired firepower in Honolulu to manage APEC, why wasn’t their damage control team on this case immediately? Why were they hiding behind “no comment” instead of having someone prominent at the victim’s home to apologize to his family? Instead of a tragic incident, this becomes the first defining moment of this APEC meeting.
In any case, the story was a great example of the new tools available to reporters.
The “alleged shooter” was identified as a federal agent by an anonymous source.
State Department officials refused to confirm that Deedy was here in connection with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference that begins Tuesday.
But reporters turned to his LinkedIn page for confirmation. Google quickly founded a description in his LinkedIn profile.
![[text]](http://ilind.net/images_2011/deedy-linked.jpg)
But when I tried the link this morning, it had already been removed.
![[text]](http://ilind.net/images_2011/deedy-linked-gone.jpg)
They then turned to the State Department web site for a description of the Diplomatic Security Service, where he was employed.
Then another online find.
In an interview online as an alumnus of the Fund for American Studies, Deedy described himself as a special agent assigned to the Washington field office, with two primary duties: criminal investigations and working on personal protection details.
The result was a pretty good background on the young agent despite official silence.
I immediately thought that if he had been part of a foreign delegation, he probably might have been able to claim diplomatic immunity. I’m guessing this doesn’t apply to a U.S. agent on American soil, but don’t know for sure.
A friend with a business nearby commented that this was another case of someone bringing their big city attitudes to our small town. “Here we just punch them,” he said.
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“A friend with a business nearby commented that this was another case of someone bringing their big city attitudes to our small town. “Here we just punch them,” he said.”
Yes, and how many of those who ‘just got punched’ have died? Both (fists and guns) are weapons that can be lethal. Guess we’ll find out if the shooting was in self-defense soon enough.
I am more scared about drunk ‘local kids’ way more than someone’s armed security personnel to tell the truth. Armed security personnel aren’t roaming around late at night looking for trouble, when most of the drunk local kids running around late at night, are.
I used to do recycling when Tiare’s was open – people used to go there just to get drunk & fight. I never once saw anyone’s security personnel doing the same thing.
If you are scared of drunk “local kids”, this means that you are either not scared of drunk white kids or you feel threatened because you are white and have been called a f***king Haole at one time.
For those of us raised or lived here for long enough, gauging the level of the threat of a drunk or a group of drunks, whether local kids or white military group, basically is a question of knowing to walk away and avoiding the escalation of the situation. Every real judo or karate teacher instills that in their students. Escalating a situation to a physical confrontation only shows poor judgement by the student who should know better.
In this specific situation, the DSS agent would have been better of having call for room service than wandering around Waikiki at 3 in the morning. If anything, the agent should have just told the McDonald’s manager to call the cops and that more than likely would have ended the situation. Pulling a gun on an unarmed group of drunks only escalated the situation. If the agent pulled his badge out and flashed it, and at the same time putting his hand on his pistol, the tragic outcome may have been avoided as well. To me, this agent did not exercise good judgment or common sense under the circumstances with the range of options he had before him. So I do have to disagree with you and state that I do have concerns about security personnel wandering around who cannot execise common sense and whose actions can result in tragedies such as the death of this young man.
How do you know the haole escalated the situation? Maybe the 4 hombres escalated the situation, yeah? Honestly, engaging in pure speculation of what happened is useless! As far as we know, he just got into Waikiki from his late flight & was down to get some fries & a milkshake and ran into these punks – who probably accused the ‘f’n haole’ of giving them stink-eye – or even more likely – whatchu doin’ here haole? This is OUR turf, a-hole,” etc. Four against one f’n haole sounds like a good time, yeah?
I live in a semi-rough neighborhood, and have heard & seen what drugs & alcohol do to otherwise nice individuals. I’ve been here longer than I lived with my own parents, and I know when to walk away or avoid the situation by not going ‘certain places,’ but sometimes it isn’t good enough and you know it. This time, it wasn’t good enough for one f’n haole & the dude that got shot.
“Semi-rough” neighborhood? I live in Waikiki. From my lanai I can throw a rock and within that circle I can note 3 murders in the last 12 years. One was in the middle of the day when a guy was walking down the street and was slugged by a crazy guy who just walked away and was never seen again. Probably just some flaked out homeless nut who inhabits my neighborhood. So in my view, “semi-rough” doesn’t cut much mustard with me.
Lol. We’re not making sandwiches here. 🙂
I lived in Waikiki in the early ’80’s, so I know the area well. In my current location: 1/2 block from my house, a man was shot a few times – in the back. Down the street a few blocks, a lady was beaten to death with a shotgun stock in front of many. And that is just in the past 3 years.
Am I supposed to be impressed by that? If this was a poker game, are you saying a beating and shooting trumps 3 murders?
Very decent job by four reporters.
But let’s take a breath. Searching for background info online has been pretty standard ops since they invented this newfangled thing called the internet. Let’s not gush too much.
The facts about this matter obviously are not clear yet, but your friend’s flippant contention that this was “another case of someone bringing their big city attitudes to our small town” was out of line. And your repeating that comment unchallenged wasn’t much better.
No well-trained and armed law enforcement officer is going to allow someone to “just punch them,” or even risk allowing that to happen, here or on the mainland, especially when the assailant is not alone. The obvious reason? It would be incredibly foolish to present an opportunity for the assailant or someone else to gain control of the officer’s gun and kill the officer or someone else. And even one good punch can kill someone. It’s happened more than once to unarmed people in this small town.
This is nothing to joke about.
[Comment slightly edited.]
And if you’re going to edit a post, at least do it competently without mangling the text. You might also disclose your squeamishness.
Sorry if I offended. If you used a valid email, I would have consulted before editing.
>>>A friend with a business nearby commented that this was another case of someone bringing their big city attitudes to our small town.
Didn’t this same thing happen a few years back with G.W. Bush’s advance team? Some self-important dude mouthing off in a bar and getting slugged?
You’d think they’d learn ……
🙂
N
To A Town Without a Newspaper:
All Hawaii News, being a solo news operation, takes weekends off. However, there were RSS feeds incoming to the site that did report on it — both as Star-Advertiser breaking news and the top national Hawaii news feed.
Thanks for reading!
🙂
N
Introducing a couple more facts that can stir yet another set of emotional, pre-judgemental arguments over a homicide case!
Per Civil Beat: “Court records show that Elderts (now dead) had been convicted of DUI in 2010 and disorderly conduct in 2008.”
Several people have commented that we probably need to get all the facts before drawing conclusions.
That’s probably a good suggestion.
I just find it disappointing that the local media is in such a rush to lynch this agent. As a blogger you can take more time to find the truth about what happened.
Nancy, that guy was walking alone in international market place and was attacked by 3 people. He was beaten severely and robbed.
I’m not going to draw a conclusion, but I’ll make an observation in the form of a question: has there been a bigger growth industry in Hawaii over the last 10 years than MMA? I just noticed BJ Penn’s new gym, joining numerous Gracie jiu-jitsu and other fighting related establishments.
WOOWOO,
Definitely a contributing factor along with the “Defend Hawaii” racist types. Some of which was allowed to be printed in the story above.
SA reporting murder charge $250,000 bail
StarAdvertiser:
“The federal agent arrested in the fatal shooting of Kailua early?Saturday morning in Waikiki has been charged with second-degree murder and use of a firearm in commission of a felony.
“Christopher Deedy, 27, a U.S. State Department special agent attached to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, is accused of killing 23-year-old Kollin Elderts during a confrontation at the McDonald’s restaurant on Kuhio Avenue around 3 a.m. It is not known if Deedy was assigned to work at this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings.
“Deedy’s bail has been set at $250,000.”
The customary bullying technique in Hawaii is to gang up on some guy, knock him to the ground and then take turns kicking and stomping his head until he is a bleeding, twitching vegetable. Surely any federal security people brought here got briefed about that. These morons just picked the wrong ******* haole.
It will be interesting to see what comes out. Surely the agent is going to say he acted in self defense.
(per the quote marks, the wording that Kailua was fatally shot in Waikiki is not mine…………………)