Back when I was a pup, in the days long before cell phone videos and concerns about civil rights, the Honolulu Police Department had something called the Metro Squad.
They were very visible throughout the 1960s in potential trouble spots like Waikiki, where they looked for trouble and could respond in kind. They cruised the streets in plain clothes, aloha shirts to be more specific, usually four to a car, as I recall. “Mokes with badges” was our impression. I never saw them in full action, but they were legendary for meting out swift street justice. No one wanted to mess with metro.
I bring that up to make the point that rowdiness and violence in Waikiki is not new, and that a long-simmering layer of violence was part of the context for this weekend’s fatal shooting.
It was noted here last year when the video of a Waikiki street brawl surfaced on YouTube. There’s a history of attacks on gay visitors. Robberies and assaults in the heart of the tourist district appear in brief news reports all too regularly.
I’m not a late night visitor to Waikiki, so I can’t evaluate whether attempts by police and private security have put a lid on the kids looking for a fight after getting out of the clubs, but anecdotal evidence–and most interpretations of the latest incident–seem to indicate the problem continues.
So what’s involved? One comment mentioned to popularity of MMA as a contributor. There are obvious signs of ethnic tensions that are playing out, and these aren’t restricted to just local vs haole. Military-civilian conflicts. Economic resentments are likely at play. Club policies? Policing policies?
We’re overdue for a more concerted community effort to focus attention and tackle the overlapping issues.
But you can see why it’s difficult for the Aloha State to address issues of racism and ethnic violence. We don’t want to publicly admit they exist. The same likely applies to programs that would point to undesirable aspects of our flagship visitor destination.
Where does public policy go from here?
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Good points, along with your previous posts regarding group (gangs) violence.
…and shouldn’t we avoid restricting our concerns to certain areas (Waikiki), and types of crime (violence, but also other crimes, including burglary, etc.)?
Maybe we do need a next generation goon squad (a police group of overwhelming force, but one that talks first: resorts to force in kind in reaction to same later)… call ’em the “good squad?”
With all of the armed security in town for APEC it might be prudent for the young locals spoiling for a fight to be more careful which haole they hit with the “What? I boddering you?” One did find out to unfortunate effect, Yes, you were bothering me.
We all have seen mokes go around half-drunk terrorizing third parties in public places.
I question attorney Michael Green’s hasty efforts to paint his client as the innocent victim and the FBI agent as the aggressor.
I wonder how many times his client had displayed bad behavior and got away with it. Unfortunately, it was different this time.
We won’t know till the facts are out. Today’s SA poked some holes in Green’s own contradictory remarks.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20111108_Federal_agent_is_free_on_bail_as_details_of_shooting_emerge.html?id=133422173
“But you can see why it’s difficult for the Aloha State to address issues of racism and ethnic violence. ” It should not be. The moniker “the Aloha State” is a fabrication of the HVCB. There has been what americans call racism and ethnic violence since the british and americanners started coming here in the late 1700’s and on til today.
People ganging up on one guy and stomping him into the ground is common in Waikiki. The news does not care enough about it to make it an issue. It’s just another faceless guy layed up in the hospital. This guy shoots one person and they already to hang him in the media with ZERO proof.
I wonder if we can find statistics on this?
@CG,
What does his mean,”ready to hang him in the media”? Forgive me for suggesting you need to regain some perspective. This guy has just killed a young man. It was no “figuratively.” It was not “in the media.” It was real life. It is a real death.
So your hyperbolic language about “hanging” the killer “in the media” is just a bit out of whack.
I am less angry with the killer than I am with the State Department for bringing such a poorly trained, reckless gun man in to our community. I can understand him “packing” if he was accompanying some dignitary, but I would demand he remain sober while packing.
I would HOPE the State Department would have the same standards, so how did they NOT impress upon all their people this basic safety rule? I think we all should be screaming to the high heavens. But if you worry we are somehow being unfair to this agent, I gotta wonder how that harm would manifest itself?You worried about him not getting a fair trial? I am more worried about some backroom deal between the feds and local authorities which results in him never standing trial at all.
Someone mentioned the Massie case. The parallel I see is a well-connected haole getting a slap on the wrist for killing a local person, with local authorities colluding with the Feds. It is up to HPD and the prosecutor’s office to show whether we are still a colonial backwater or not.
A murder charge and $250k bail is not a slap on the wrist. The general sense is that the HPD is coming down hard on this man.
For me, this case does not represent a racist gunman for the global elite getting his way in a mild mannered community. This is not a scene from “Shane”.
Instead, this incident points out the virtues of gun control. If someone insults your family or slaps you in the face, for example, you will instinctively want to shoot them. That’s human nature. This is why having a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases is good for everyone. A week after being goaded into a fight or personally insulted, you will probably have either forgotten about the incident or even be ruefully amused by it.
If this agent hadn’t had a gun on his person (in a bar no less), he and the person he allegedly shot would be able to tell their kids twenty or thirty years from now a funny but instructive story about “There was this crazy time I was in a bar in Waikiki….”
Growing up here, then travelling and living in California, Oklahoma and Virginia, my perception of these states is Hawaii is the most racist and “redneck” state of all.
Most locals know not to stare too long or be too vocal or pushy in public. Mainland haoles (especially from back east) are sometimes subtle “bullying” culprits, but it doesn’t take long to realize that that can quickly escalate into a confrontation. And locals are short on “discussion” and quick with the “false-crack”, but usually not by the Asian or haole residents, who make up the large majority of Hawaii’s residents. Being part-Hawaiian, I am sorry to say it’s the small % of Polynesian/Pacific islanders who are involved in most of these altercations.
Here’s a short dialog I once had with a huge moke who mistakenly thought I had given him stink-eye. You can think of it as English, or you can think of it as Pidgin. Did he think I didn’t understand what he was saying? Jus one stoopid haole, eh? Too funny!
Moke: “Eh, you like beef?”
Me: “No, I like chicken.”
Ken, what’s great about this story is that even if it were true – which, I’m sorry to tell you, it obviously is not – it would still be an embarrassment to you.
Of course now the story is changing and it appears the agent was never in the bar or at least never met the dead man before McDonalds. The dead man had a knife and may have threatened the agent using racial slurs. The agent appears to have fired one round into the ceiling and when that didn’t work he shot the attacker.
Not saying that is fact, but the word on the “street” is that the “good kid” wasn’t so good and pretty much asked for it.
What this means is there are 2 sides to this and before jumping to conviction of the security agent, we need to view all the evidence.
Rumors are flying and we would do best to wait and see before judging.
No statistics are compiled. But if they were, how accurate would they be.
“This guy shoots one person and they already to hang him in the media with ZERO proof.”
yea, dang it. Prove to me this f—-n’ haole shot someone!
I think the fact that he shot someone is not in dispute. However, he may have done it in self defense to avoid being beaten into the concrete by a group of drunk locals.
In today’s paper they have an article “Waikiki slaying leads to murder charge.” the victim’s lawyer claims they were from a bar that he can’t name and he does not provide a single shred of proof. Yet the people ran with it as fact and gave it a sensational headline.
HPD is still “Mokes with badges”.
there are too many unanswered questions surrounding the Waikiki shooting for anyone to claim they know anything about what happened, other than one guy is dead and a fed has been arrested. It’s real easy to get fired up and start huffing and puffing about effn’ this and effn’ that guy. but those with wisdom will wait for more before speaking about what happened.
spot on, curious george.
Tim
Sorry, George. I would agree we need to know more facts before passing sentence on the federal agent. And that will take time. But I think it is very important to express outrage at the shooting. APEC has brought hundreds of armed bodyguards and security people in our community. This has already resulted in one death.
We need to push back in no uncertain terms, putting the organizers on notice. WTH was this agent doing armed on the streets of Waikiki at 3 o’clock in the morning? If he was escorting a VIP dignitary, I can understand his need to be armed. But he would also have to remain sober and calm and it appears he was neither.
ONe would hope it would be unnecessary to demand the State Department brief their agents on the need to remain professional and avoid problems. But clearly, they did not do a good enough job. So we need to drive home the point. If online grumbling and angry complaints among Hawaii residents over this shooting strike you as “unfair,” I see a much greater harm occurring if we remain silent or, as some are instinctively doing, rush to the defense of the “poor” killer out of an intuitive hostility to young, drunk, local males.
In my view, the gunman, the State Department and the local APEC cheerleaders have a lot to answer for and we should demand those answers.
Racism certainly exists, but I do think it gets blown slightly out of proportion in situations like this. Epithets hurled in the rush of adrenaline are always used to emphasize differences. I’m not saying that some locals don’t truly dislike haoles, I’m saying that if a local guy is going to get into a fight with a haole he’s going to open up with the effin haole line. If he’s going to get into a fight with another local dude thats chubby, he’s going to call him a fat ___, doesn’t mean he’s a hater of overweight people per se. It’s all part of the posturing.
On the MMA front, I do think that things are different. I am a moderate fan, and I have friends that are big fans. We also are boxing fans. We will happily go out and watch a boxing match at a bar. We always watch MMA at someone’s home. The element at MMA matches is totally different. I have a friend that is large and muscular. He won’t go to a MMA match, too many “What, you like fight?” looks. And he’s local.
SA:
“The 27-year-old federal special agent accused of fatally shooting a 23-year-old Kailua man Saturday posted $250,000 bail early this morning and was released from police custody.
Christopher Deedy, 27, an off-duty special agent with the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security who was assigned to help with security at this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, is accused of killing 23-year-old Kollin Elderts during a confrontation at the McDonald’s restaurant on Kuhio Avenue at about 2:44 a.m. Saturday.
He is scheduled to make his initial District Court appearance on Nov. 17 after being charged Sunday night with second-degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. He posted bail at 4:30 a.m.
A police statement filed with the court that would provide more detail on the crime and arrest will not be released to the public until after Deedy’s court appearance, according to District Court workers. Police have refused to provide more information on the case, saying it is “an ongoing investigation.” However they did confirm that more than one shot was fired, as witnesses told the Star-Advertiser Saturday.
The State Department confirmed today that Deedy was in Honolulu to beef up security ahead of the APEC summit, which begins Tuesday. He has been put on paid administrative leave.
Attorney Michael Green, who was retained by Elderts’ mother, said Elderts and Deedy got into an altercation at a nightclub and Deedy followed Elderts to the McDonald’s.
Green said he plans to seek surveillance videos around Waikiki to see what led to the shooting.
Mayor Peter Carlisle, a former city prosecutor, described Saturday’s incident as “unfortunate that it occurred during APEC.”
“But is equally unfortunate that it occurred at all.””
It appears that night clubs need to be closed during APEC, too. How was that missed?
Or just “off-limits” to armed federal agents!
SA is now reporting that pocket knife was found at the scene
People get beat up, and beat to death, in Waikiki all the time. Here’s a small sample :
Ian : I tried to post half a dozen links but it rejected my comment as spam when I did that. No matter, google “waikiki beating”.
Unfortunaltey for for Eldbert, where people in Hawaii are usually (unconstitutionnaly) reqiured to be be unarmed, defensless prey, he seems to have picked on the wrong guy.
The only “evidence” we have that Deedy followed Eldbert to MacDoanlds and not the other way around is the testimony from Eldberts Lawyer. If Eldbert(and his crew, armed with pocket knives) followed Deedy, than what we have here is justifiable homicide. Deedy is not obliged to take a beating and spend a couple of years in an ICU eating through a straw because people in Hawaii don’t like guns. Groups of thugs are just as deadly with there new found MMA skills as people are with guns.