Two years after four lives and seven homes were lost in a disturbed Diamond Head resident’s shooting spree and ensuing conflagration, the shroudlike black construction curtains are finally coming down along Hibiscus Drive, revealing rebuilt homes and the promise of new life.

A new, white wooden cottage stands in the footprint of its predecessor at 3019 Hibiscus Drive, behind a white front gate and picket fence that somehow survived. Toward the Ewa end of the block, a two-story house has been rebuilt and awaits paint and other finishing touches.

They serve as beacons of hope among vacant lots where four other homes were destroyed in the Jan. 19, 2020, fire that began at 3015 Hibiscus Drive, where a tenant, Jaroslav “Jerry” Hanel, allegedly beat his landlady, Lois Cain, stabbed a tenant who attempted to rescue her, and fatally shot Honolulu police officers Tiffany Enriquez and Kaulike Kala­­ma as they responded to neighbors’ calls.

After the fires were extinguished and the smoldering wreckage had cooled enough to search, the remains of Hanel and Cain were found on her property.

Over the years, Hanel’s threatening behavior had given rise to many complaints and restraining orders, and since the tragedy, neighbors, agencies and state legislators have called for changes in Hawaii’s gun and mental illness laws to prevent such violence.

Progress has been made, state Sen. Chris Lee said Tuesday in a phone interview.

The good news, Lee said, was the passage in 2020 of an omnibus bill that established a gun violence and violent crime commission and prohibits homemade “ghost guns” lacking serial numbers. But dangerous loopholes remained, notably the ability of a person in illegal possession of a firearm to buy ammunition, as happened in Hanel’s case.

In February 2020, he added, Hawaii’s “red flag” law took effect, allowing family, household members and law enforcement officers to petition a court for an order temporarily removing guns from a person in crisis.

The commission, by getting law enforcement and mental health agencies at the same table to share information when “someone identified as a risk to the community or themselves has been experiencing extreme mental health issues,” was intended to “connect the dots to better avoid situations like Mr. Hanel’s from slipping through cracks,” Lee said.

Through interagency communication and collaboration, the commission seeks to ensure that “law enforcement when they engage with that person is aware” of all possible risks, he said, noting that officers Enriquez and Kalama walked down the driveway of 3015 Hibiscus Drive, where they had responded to complaints about Hanel many times before, unprepared for his ambush, having not been informed he could be armed.

While a summary report is expected to be completed shortly, according to HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu, a friend and house guest of Cain told the Honolulu Star- Advertiser in 2020 that Hanel had access to guns registered to Cain’s late husband.

In an email Tuesday, state Sen. Joy San Buenaventura said she plans to reintroduce HB 2709, which would require that the police be notified of any and all firearms in an estate and that the Police Department certify that all registered firearms in an estate have been properly transferred or disposed of before the estate may close.

From a mental health perspective, one way to help prevent Hibiscus Drive-type debacles is helping police officers be better prepared through training in crisis intervention teams, or CIT, which debuted in Hawaii in late 2019, bringing officers together with Department of Health staff, mental health providers, military veterans, people with mental illness and their families to learn how to assess and deescalate situations regarding mental health crisis, said Kumi Macdonald, executive director for NAMI Hawaii, the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ Hawaii chapter, in a phone interview Tuesday.

“Evidence from programs across the nation shows CIT generally brings more officer safety and less incidents of violence against officers and community members, so the more officers that get educated, the better off in general the community will be,” Macdonald said.

Since 2020, Macdonald said, the number of officers certified by Hawaii’s 40-hour crisis intervention training program, which NAMI organizes in partnership with the Hawaii Health and Harm Reduction Center and others, has grown from 58 to 69. While in-person classes were limited due to pandemic restrictions, interest in the program has been high: 110 law enforcement staff have participated in a two-day CIT seminar via Zoom, and 18 have signed up for the next 40-hour session, which starts next week.

In addition, she said, Hawaii’s improved assisted community treatment law, revised in 2019, makes it easier for advocates to secure court-ordered psychiatric care “for someone who’s mentally ill and continually may want to hurt themselves or others, and can’t advocate for themselves.”

The Star-Advertiser reported on Jan. 22, 2020, that Cain, who had moved to evict Hanel the week before she was killed, had been trying to get him to seek mental health treatment, which he refused, according to neighbors and his attorney, Jonathan Burge.

While the assisted community treatment law does not allow judges to order involuntary hospitalization, “the court will mandate treatment and follow-up treatment,” Macdonald said.

Debbie Millikan, a former resident of Hibiscus Drive who until mid-2019 lived with her husband and children across the street from Cain and Hanel for 16 years, said she was hopeful the revised assisted community treatment law would be effectively used “to order a person with serious mental illness to obtain the psychiatric treatment they need while remaining in the community and keeping our communities safe.”

“The real tragedy,” Millikan said, “is if we do nothing to fix the problem.”