Man said he attacked officer because he prefers prison to homelessness

A 36-year-old homeless man accused of stabbing a Honolulu police officer with a screwdriver told police the attack wasn’t personal, but an attempt to get imprisoned because he’s sick of living on the street.

An Oahu grand jury returned an indictment Thursday charging the man, Remington Troy Guyton, with assaulting a law enforcement officer and attempting to steal the officer’s firearm.

The officer said that during the attack Guyton tried to undo the hood of the holster that prevents the removal of his gun.

State Circuit Judge Shirley Kawamura confirmed Guyton’s bail at $50,000. Guyton has been in custody since his arrest Sunday.

Deputy Prosecutor Ashley Tanaka told Kawamura that the officer was flagged down outside First Hawaiian Bank on Kapiolani Boulevard on a report of a male punching and shoving people. When the officer stopped and stepped out of his police car, she said, Guyton dropped a bag he was carrying, shouted, “You better f—-ing kill me,” and rushed at the officer with a screwdriver.

Tanaka said Guyton punched the officer in the ribs and stabbed him in the face with the screwdriver, near the officer’s jaw. She said Guyton then punched the officer in the right eye and swung the screwdriver at his face a second time.

In the ensuing struggle, during which Guyton punched the officer in the mouth, police said the officer was able to push Guyton’s hands away from his gun holster and take him to the ground.

During his transport to the Honolulu Police Department Main Headquarters’ cellblock, Guyton told police the attack wasn’t personal, he saw the officer coming at him as a chance of getting life (in prison) in Halawa (Correctional Facility) and that “other officers would have shot or Tasered me for what I did,” Tanaka said.

Guyton has a misdemeanor theft conviction and, at the time of his arrest for the current case, was wanted on a $200 bench warrant for failing to show up in Honolulu District Court in April for a trial on two counts of petty misdemeanor harassment.

He was arrested in January for assault in a case in which a 29-year-old man was hit on the head with a hatchet on a city bus. Guyton was never charged because the victim withdrew his complaint.