Legislator was victim of ‘gang-style attack’

A retired Marine described Monday’s assault on state Rep. Tom Brower at a homeless encampment in Kakaako as a “coordinated, gang-style attack.”

The 52-year-old Kaneohe resident and his wife did not see what prompted the attack that sent Brower (D, Waikiki-Ala Moana-Kakaako) to the Queen’s Medical Center with a laceration near his right eye, facial swelling, bruised ribs and scrapes on his leg and left hand.

But as they were leaving the Hawaii Children’s Discovery Center at about 4:30 p.m., they saw a man whom they later learned was Brower running toward the center yelling for help with his hands in the air.

They were about 15 to 20 feet away as Brower reached the front of the Children’s Discovery Center where about 10 people enveloped the state lawmaker, forming a semicircle that prevented him from getting away, the couple said.

“They were blocking him to the point where he had nowhere to escape,” the retired Marine said. “He was completely defenseless. He had his hands up.”

The couple asked not to be identified, saying they now fear for their own safety.

Their version heightens ongoing concerns about lawlessness around the growing encampment that winds around the Children’s Discovery Center, Kakaako Waterfront Park and the University of Hawaii medical school.

Some of the homeless people who live in the expanding makeshift warren of tents and tarpaulins describe thefts and fights that begin when outsiders come into the area to videotape them and narrate negative comments onto their videos.

The boys accused of attacking Brower said he refused to stop taking pictures of them and laughed when they asked him to delete the pictures. Brower has denied that he did anything to provoke the boys.

Brower went to the encampment Monday in response to a June 24 email to lawmakers and the Hawaii Community Development Authority that oversees Kakaako. In her email, Loretta Yajima, chairwoman of the Children’s Discovery Center’s board of directors, attached a surveillance video recording in which a man defecates at one of the center’s entrances. He then stands up and urinates on his feces, then squats back down to defecate some more. After he leaves, another man appears in the video and attempts to break into the building. He seems to study the pile of feces before defecating himself.

“These are not the most graphic videos we have, but others would totally gross you out,” Yajima said in the email. “At least they will give you some idea of the problems we are having.”

Christopher Jacopec, 47, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Thursday that he too was assaulted by at least two young men near the Children’s Discovery Center.

In that case the Kalihi resident said the incident occurred at about 6:30 p.m. Feb. 17 while dropping off his daughter’s teenage friend at her tent in the encampment.

“I got beat up by a gang of kids after we drove down the homeless street by the Children’s Discovery Center,” Jacopec said.

While standing near his truck, Jacopec said, “Someone ran around the back of my truck and punched me in the back of my head, and I fell down. My rotator cuff almost completely ripped out, and when I landed my kneecap almost cracked in half — and I landed on (my) face.

He continued, “When I got up, one guy kicked me in the side of my head, and it hurt me really bad. My daughter and the other girl started screaming for them to stop, and they stopped. But when I got back in my truck, one guy punched me in my face through my window.”

Jacopec said he believes the attack was triggered by a Facebook feud — that Jacopec got involved with — between his daughter’s friend and another girl who lives in the encampment.

Jacopec said he suffered a concussion, chipped teeth, dizziness and memory loss and faces $19,000 in medical bills.

“I could barely walk, could barely lift my arm,” he said. “My brain was bruised and I couldn’t remember anything.”

Jacopec said he filed a report with the Honolulu Police Department but has yet to hear back from HPD.

People who live in the encampment say the homeless population based there has exploded in the past few months, with people moving in after being forced out of other areas such as Aala Park and Ala Moana Beach Park.

Where tents were once separated by yards of sidewalk, they now lean up against one another, buttressed by plywood and wooden pallettes.

The Children’s Discovery Museum email noted that prior to the encampment’s recent population spike, problems tied to homelessness in the area were subsiding a bit with help from HPD. Now, “Things are getting bad again,” said the email that prompted Brower’s Monday visit.

While announcing Thursday that the Institute for Human Services will operate Hale Mauliola transitional modular housing center at Sand Island, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell reiterated his position on the matter of homelessness.

“The answer to homelessness is providing more housing. This is a transition into permanent housing. I think this is the beginning to an answer to what you see not only in Kakaako, but in Kapalama and other concentrated areas.”

Kakaako presents particular problems because of multiple landowners and jurisdictions that require “more people working together,” Caldwell said. “It creates more complication as a result, too, which slows down the process. But you’ve got a commitment from me, we’re not giving up, we’re not stopping. We’re trying to do it in a way that has as positive an impact (as) possible for everyone involved.”

HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu said the state attorney general’s office is investigating the attack on Brower. Attorney General Department spokesman Josh Wisch said department policy prohibits him from acknowledging whether an investigation is underway.

One of the two teens who has admitted hitting Brower told the Star-Advertiser on Thursday that he was interviewed by an investigator from the Attorney General’s Office this week and that he returned Brower’s camera. The 17-year-old boy said his younger cousin had deleted the photos that Brower took.

The Star-Advertiser is not reporting the boys’ names because they are minors.

The retired Marine who saw Brower’s beating said his wife called the Attorney General’s Office Wednesday and spoke to an investigator. She was upset after the call, her husband said, because she felt the investigator seemed to dismiss the incident as a case of “adolescent stupidity.”

He said that a teenager about 16 to 18 years old tackled Brower in bushes adjacent to the center and assaulted him.

“At least one female was egging it on,” the man said. “I was in shock.”

Young children were exiting the center when the assault occurred. “I think everybody was scared,” he said, noting that parents and others quickly ushered the children away from the scene and toward their vehicles.

He described the homeless encampment as an out-of-control area.

“They’re not just lawless,” he said. “They have their own law.”

Star-Advertiser reporter Gordon Y.K. Pang contributed to this report.