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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The KHNL newscast had the attorney representing the Elderts stating that the incident at McDonalds was preceded with a confrontation at a bar/nightclub. The parties were evidently carrying on a contiuation of a prior incident which led to the death. It does not bode well for the agent, since HPD has seen that enough information and evidence supports the charging the agent with murder as stated in the SA update.
If the agent was drinking it would not bode well for him at all
Ian… has it been confirmed he was actually here for APEC and not just on vacation?
…there are haoles. and then there are “fV<#in' haoles" since 1778.
And they have been fV<#in with Hawai;'i and the locals since. To those who parrot the ignorant rejoiner: "Ya lost the war, get used to it" ignore this post. For an elaboration of the unfortunate consequences of the celebrated arrival of the first white men in Hawaii see Furnas, An Anatomy of Paradise.
A quick correction made earlier today: FACE is not a Christian organization. There are several non-Christian faith communities actively involved in it.
Back to the main theme of the postings: Something is not right here and it’s not just the fatal shooting.
What I find particularly disturbing is that the ACLU canceled its Legal Observer training several weeks ago because it didn’t think having the program in place would be necessary given the unlikelihood that large numbers of people would be able to afford to come to Honolulu to demonstrate.
Hope to see some of you at Thomas Square tomorrow.
Get real. I’m not going to judge this guy until I know what happened. “Bringing big city attitudes to this small town?” Come on. This is not a small town anymore and has not been for some time. The number of “attitudes” over here are growing exponentially too. Let’s find out what started all this before concluding what it is. Once we know for sure, than fine. Plenty people over here have too much to drink and attitude towards strangers aren’t the same and we all know it. Chill.
I’ve met several DSS types overseas and they struck me as well trained but also restrained. They have to deal with State Department types who are diplomats and not fond of force. Similarly a trigger happy DSS agent overseas could get an embassy burned down if he shot a local without a really really good reason.
That said what was he doing (apparently) first in a bar and then at MacDonalds at 2 in the morning and why did he need to fire three shots?
“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! ” huh. a self negating post.
illustrating a position is not self-negating —– unless you over-interpret the illustration.
Knife found at the scene according to SA. Does that change anyone’s crazy speculative opinion on what happened?
By coincidence, I recently watched the first half of the British gangster movie “The Long Good Friday”.
In it, Bob Hoskins plays an old-fashioned London hood who made it big in the 1960s and who wants to go legit in the 1980s by bringing in American Mafia money to develop London docklands.
Unfortunately, at that very moment, some mysterious group decides to kill off and replace his organization. His crude reactions during his investigation into just who has been killing off his crew only reveals just how small time he really is.
He finds out that it is the Irish Republican Army, which he assumes is a two-bit operation that he can easily rub out.
Big, big mistake.
Throughout the movie, Hoskin’s character expresses remorse for the decay of London, the rise of narcotics, Britain’s decline, the loss of civility in daily life, etc. The whole movie is a metaphor of a Britain lapsed into small-time mediocrity and corruption, and how it cannot compete in the modern world.
That reminded me of this incident in question.
This shooting in Waikiki might be a defining moment of APEC 2011, but it’s also a defining moment for Hawaii in the 21st century. One widespread impression in this shooting is of a small-time local brawler punching way above his weight class. Much the same can be said about the last ten years and the big projects that Hawaii has decided to take on. APEC is one such project — only it’s here and now, not some as-yet abstract multi-billion dollar fancy scheme coming down the pipe.
Big projects by crude little men?
Big, big mistakes.
The same can be said for the UH football team; getting smacked when punching above its weight class (Sugar Bowl), getting all fired up only when it gets disrespected and its pride insulted (the occasional road win, say, La. Tech), being mentally weak, overlooking an oponent it should beat, and forgetting to show up (UNLV, San Jose State, and Utah State).
A bad joke, but fortunately not fatal.
Did that LinkedIn account say anything about military service? By this guy’s, Christopher Deedy’s, overreaction, seems like he had the bad judgement of reacting like he was in Iraq or Afghanstan. Already checked Wikileaks, did not find a Deedy on there. Ten to 1 says you search this guy’s military history and you will find problems there. [slightly edited]
I don’t see time in this guy’s life for a military stint and your wager that Deedy is a deranged vet is presumptuous at best, downright insulting at worst.
From the S-A:
“His LinkedIn page says he is a graduate of Tulane University in New Orleans who worked as an economist with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics before joining the State Department in June 2009.”
If he’s 27 now and started at the State Dept. in 2009, he would have been 25 at that time. He probably would have been 22 when he graduated Tulane and had a stint at the Bureau of Labor Statistics somewhere in the three years that followed. So, no, I’m not thinking he had time to be in the military or that there’s a PTSD explanation for this.
Moreover, whatever you think of the Iraq/Afghanistan mess, you do a disservice to all those who served there — especially this Veteran’s Day week — to typecast them as some sort of ticking timebomb. Really inappropriate here.
@Russel Yamashita,
Getting beat to DEATH is a murder & the fellow who got shot wasn’t shot for fun, so I’d classify that as attempted murder – pretty darned close to being murdered. I don’t know why you think I’m trying to impress you. I’m just saying that you think you’re in some bad place, when other places are as bad or worse. Later.
People really took sides quickly with this Waikiki shooting before any of the facts got out.
Now, for the activists who are rushing to the defense of the victim, it might be instructive to remember the outcome of the Tawana Brawley incident in New York in 1987, who claimed that six white men raped her. A lot of black activists like the Rev. Al Sharpton came to her defense and made her a celebrity. When a grand jury concluded that Brawley’s claims were false. This hurt Sharpton’s career and black activism.
Much the same could happen with this shooting.