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?
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about the only bright side to this disgusting event:
Jim Dooley, one of the state’s top reporters, is still around to do some excellent reporting that does not rely on public relations and damage control.
Why is this family lawyer allowed to appear on the news and tell a completely different story two nights in a row. It’s obvious he has no idea what happened or doesn’t want to tell the truth about it. He only seems interested in making sure this agent does not receive a fair trial.
Has Mr. Green forgot the story he told last night? I thought Deedy followed them from a nearby bar looking for blood?
Now that more details are emerging, I wonder if some of the people who have rushed to post uninformed, reckless, inflammatory, and even racist comments here are smart enough to feel stupid.
What about you, Ian? Any second thoughts about approving such crap for publication?
This has not been not your finest moment.
Many comments certainly have been uninformed, reckless, inflammatory, and racist.
But the point is to let people express these sad comments — openly and freely — and to discredit their postings through discussion, not silence.
To put it another way, if Ian were to delete every crap comment —– he wouldn’t have much of a blog discussion!! Should he delete your inflammatory comment for saying he approved crap for publication? No.
We were in Kona when the first story appeared in the paper, and I was appalled that the editors/reporters involved allowed the family’s attorney to spin the story the way he did.
It was terrible reporting and worse editing.
and it’s they type of reporting (can we even call such one sided that?) you get in a tightly knit community where he probably belongs to the same clubs as the SA editors and send his kids to the same schools.
I got to agree with some of the other comments. The credibility of the news reports coming out this incident is disappearing fast. Michael Green is rambling about what he thinks happened and changing what he thinks daily. And the media is reporting this as news. At least hold him accountable with a follow-up story that states that Michael Green’s version of the events has found to be not credible. And the headline should read — we apologize for playing games with the public. We should know better.
I don’t agree.
I think most or all of Green’s comments were properly sourced, so you knew these were comments by Green based on what he was told by the family.
It was properly reported, with the clues we needed as readers to judge the source.
That’s what has to be done in a developing situation like this where details are only slowly becoming available.
Isn’t that preferable to waiting until a trial determines the legal “truth”?
And you have gotten the follow-up report with Green’s changing story.
That’s why you’re upset.
It did it’s job, showing his changing position.
There’s likely to be a lot more conflicting information to come, eventually to be weighed in a court.
Many facts have yet to come out, but this one from SA is very telling:
“Additionally, the source said Deedy refused to take a blood alcohol test at the scene and that he appeared to have been drinking.”
More kudos to the SA for using reliable sources, not just relying on spokesmen and press releases.
Reliable sources are rarely anonymous, unless the editors are lazy.
Just in case Watergate & the Washington Post happen to be a “rare” exception here, what about the following famous pieces that also relied on anonymous sources?
The Pentagon Papers
President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans, without warrants
C.I.A.’s overseas detention sites
Should Americans been kept in the dark here?
And in a small place like Hawaii, where people often do NOT like to talk stink, anonymity is necessary sometimes. It is definitely Agreed that it would be stupid to rely on anonymous BS for all news stories …… but such broad rejection of anonymous sources is what leads to shoddy, PR-related journalism that you see all too commonly today.
Adverjournalism is far more guilty of lazy reporting and editing than use of anonymous sources.
You would think that Green or someone else would have told the family/friends to find another picture of Elderts to use instead of one of him holding a beer.
“What about you, Ian? Any second thoughts about approving such crap for publication?”
Ian, just keep “approving such crap”. Makes for entertaining reading. America land of free, home of brave, free speech, all that…
“This has not been not your finest moment.” Apparently, it has been no one’s…
At the end of the day most of this stuff does not matter. The agent is under 30 and on an advance State department security detail for APEC, meaning he has a stellar foreign service record to advance so far so young. He also came out of close quarter combat as the victor. The “victim” has an arrest record in the past few years of disorderly conduct, DUI, driving with a revoked license/and no insurance. Hard to find a picture without an alcoholic beverage in his hand. Those are the facts that are historically evident. All the stories churning about what happened are in dispute and now there is an attorney getting in front of cameras trying to manipulate public sentiment with the help of the media. Before anyone concludes who the victim really was in this altercation, perhaps we should ask ourselves if we would kill by any available means if we thought our life was in danger. Those who have been mobbed know the answer. The only thing he may be guilty of was drinking while in possession of his firearm. That does not remove his right to defend his life in the face of bodily harm or death. If the agent survived a hate crime assault by an attacker with an edged weapon whose arrest history will be made public, then I hope he walks and does not judge all Hawaii by the worst of us. [slight edit]
Any critique of these comments would clearly go nowhere – the commenter has made up his mind. As such, the best response is simply to post the following from SB:
“Alan Gano, a retired criminal investigator with U.S. Customs, said policies for federal agencies he’s familiar with prohibit law enforcement officers from carrying weapons if they were drinking alcohol.
“You don’t drink when you’re armed,” Gano said.
An exception, he added, would be an undercover officer who had to meet a contact at a bar as part of an undercover operation.
Gano retired from Customs in the 1990s but said policies prohibiting being armed while drinking still are intact. “That kind of stuff never changes,” he said.”
The agent was here for APEC, off-duty, and not “undercover.” He should not have been armed while drinking.
Why is this an important policy?
Let’s say I’m drunk right now. Really drunk. I think my life is in danger, so I shoot you and I kill you.
To make things even more interesting, I then refuse a test for alcohol consumption, which basically indicates I know I __cked up badly while drunk. Should I go free anyway, even though you are now dead? Because I THOUGHT you were attacking me, while I was drunk?
I bet your family would love that argument. On top of that, several million prisoners around the U.S. would love to have you as their lawyer.
More telling facts are emerging from the case. And many facts are on their way. And many more facts often don’t come out until a trial takes place.
I recommend waiting for even more telling facts to emerge before making bad conclusions — and this applies to every possible side of this discussion, in favor of the guy with the knife or the guy with a gun.
Haole boy who shot local braddah was not fully qualified to handle firearms.
http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2011/11/08/13681-experience-gaps-found-at-waikiki-murder-suspect-s-agency/
That a pretty long jump in your logic. Perhaps read that piece again. it said nothing of the sort.
Oh darn, yer right. It did not mention haole boy at all.
Hey, haole boy, knock it off with the racial slurs.
Everything is a racial slur to americans. Denizens of the most racist country… who invented racism. (and the double standard. (“Free speech, but only for us!”) Haoles love to yell “racist” and to make matters worse, malihini have no clue what haole means. (Most malihini don’t know Hawaiian words.)
I recommend the following book: “Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry”
“From before the days of Moses up through the 1960s, slavery was a fact of life in the Middle East. Pagans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims bought and sold at the slave markets for millennia, trading the human plunder of wars and slave raids that reached from the Russian steppes to the African jungles. But if the Middle East was one of the last regions to renounce slavery, how do we account for its–and especially Islam’s–image of racial harmony? How did these long years of slavery affect racial relations? In Race and Slavery in the Middle East, Bernard Lewis explores these questions and others, examining the history of slavery in law, social thought, and practice over the last two millennia.”
In short, no, the U.S. did NOT invent racism. It certainly capitalized upon racism, but I recommend looking a little deeper into history before drawing conclusions.
Oh dear. I disparaged the U.S. on the subject of racism. gawd!
No, your comment was simply incorrect, that’s all.
“No, your comment was simply incorrect, that’s all.” jeez. we’re back in grade school.
I feel sorry for yo teachers. 🙂
Just how many young men are beaten to a pulp in Waikiki? I’d like to see the stats too. My husband was recovering from surgery at Queen’s and the young Man in the next bed had been knocked off his bicycle and severely beaten. The Nurse that was taking care of him has a son who had been beaten six months earlier and our daughter’s friend had been attached just months before that and spent the night in ER. All in Waikiki. None were robbed. It was senseless violence. Needless to say, Waikiki at night is off limits for our family. How about a sting operation to catch these creeps. Please be careful.
By now the police have reviewed video and interviewed witnesses. If that agent murdered a local male in cold blood without provocation, on camera/in front of numerous witnesses he would not be on the streets period.
A lot of examination of Deedy’s qualifications, training, and work record. Zero mention of Elderts. Occupation and work history is a standard part of this type of story. I recall earlier stories mentioning that he played football in high school. So until I read otherwise from a credible source, I’m going to assume that this guy was an able bodied 23 year old that didn’t work for a living but had money to go out partying in Waikiki.
And before others start verbally stomping on my head, that doesn’t mean that he deserved to get shot. I just think that as we go over Deedy’s background (untrained? Trigger happy statistician?) we can go over Elderts’ (unemployed moke?).