I just discovered “The Frontier,” a nonprofit digital news startup in Oklahoma, of all places. Following a link via Investigative Reporters & Editors, I’ve been reading an excellent five-part series on the failure of the system for investigating and responding to rape and sexual assault.
“Shadowland: How rape stays hidden in Oklahoma.”
A yearlong investigation by The Frontier has examined rape and sexual assaults in Oklahoma, uncovering a war-within-a-war that requires some victims to fight for their own justice while government and private agencies fight for money, personnel and proven training methods to assist victims.
The Frontier conducted more than 70 interviews to put the state’s undeclared rape crisis in perspective.
Our investigation documents how the pleas of women and men who have been sexually assaulted have fallen on deaf ears from the state Capitol all the way to the White House. Their efforts to hold attackers accountable are part of a national trend that has swept up powerful men in Hollywood, Washington and across the nation.
This is a very disturbing series. The reporting was done in Oklahoma but, as the series points out, it could have been anywhere.
It makes me wonder about how sex crimes are handled in Hawaii’s tourism oriented economy, where good reporting might be considered bad for business. And in local communities, where all too often police officers know the assailants.
In any case, it’s another great example of good investigative reporting being done in local online newsrooms.
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How about a grisly Christmas murder in puna that no one is covering except for a very brief press release. I imagine after the tourists go home after the holidays we will hear more. Investigative journalism is all but dead on Hawai‘i Island. Residents want to know. Right now it’s Romeu and speculation.
Police investigators still aren’t sure whether the charred body found Monday morning inside a torched truck in Puna is a man or woman.
But an autopsy scheduled for today will answer that question and hopefully provide additional clues to those attempting to solve the Christmas Day murder mystery.
“We’re still sorting through details and making arrangements for the autopsy,” Capt. Randall Medeiros of the Hilo Criminal Investigation Division said Tuesday. “We have a possible person who it may be, who we’re looking at.”
According to police, someone saw the truck, still burning, at about 10 a.m. on Kehaulani Street, a side road between 37th and 39th avenues near Pohaku Drive in the Orchidland Estates subdivision, and called dispatch.
“The Fire Department went there, extinguished the flames, and noticed there was the body,” Medeiros said. Asked if the body was found in the driver’s seat, Medeiros replied that the body was found “inside the vehicle” and added that releasing more information might jeopardize the investigation.
Police said in a written release Monday they have reason to “suspect that this incident is related to evidence located at another property” on 39th Avenue near Aulii Street, about two miles away from where the truck and body were found.
When the Tribune-Herald inquired if the second location is the potential murder scene, Medeiros replied, “It’s too early to say, but there’s something that suggested to us that the two scenes are tied together.” He declined to elaborate.
“It’s very early in the investigation,” Medeiros added, and said he’s hoping potential witnesses will come forward with information about what occurred at both locations.
Anyone with information is asked to call the police nonemergency line at 935-3311 or contact Detective Kayne Kelii at 961-2378 or Kayne.kelii@hawaiicounty.gov. Those who prefer anonymity can call Crime Stoppers at 961-8300.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.