Editorial: Waianae Coast needs healing

The Waianae Coast has a violent crime problem. Worse, it has a violent crime problem erupting among teens and young adults who are wielding deadly guns, which appear to be plentiful and easily available. Lives are being lost and innocent bystanders’ safety threatened by the proliferating shootings.

It’s become a matter of life and death — as serious as it gets — that solutions be found to quell the violence and mend the gaping rifts in the social fabric from which this crisis erupts. This will require focused involvement by both county and state entities — particularly the Honolulu Police Department (HPD), which has failed to adequately patrol and protect this area; and Hawaii’s Department of Education, which must seek out and gather resources to bring Waianae’s many youths who have fallen out of the educational fold back into a healthy and nurturing environment.

It’s important for the health and safety of the entire island that, with support, Waianae comes together to find solutions that will repair the broken links that are leading to these deadly consequences. Should this eruption of youthful violence be a red flag that a generation of Oahuans is maturing into a criminal mindset, the consequences of ignoring the problem will be far more costly than acting now.

The most recent deadly incident took place just before 1 a.m. on Sept. 23, at the Waianae Boat Harbor. Gunfire broke out, and a 29-year-old man, shot repeatedly as he sat in the driver’s seat of a car, died at the scene. A 21-year-old woman with him was also shot repeatedly, and critically injured. A 19-year-old man, also a suspected shooter, was found dead next to the car. An 18-year-old was charged with attempted murder; police say other, unidentified suspects remain free.

Hours after the shootings, community members gathered to rally against gun violence and crime on Oahu’s west side.

“We don’t have subtle crimes here. We have murder, theft, gambling houses and fentanyl overdoses that just run rampant here on the Waianae Coast,” Samantha DeCorte, chair of the Nanakuli-Maili neighborhood board, told KITV4 News.

At the rally, many issued pleas to finish and staff the Waianae Police Station, almost completely built but sitting half-empty since 2016. That’s gone on for far too long. DeCorte, City Councilmember Andria Tupola, who represents the district, and a chorus of Waianae Coast residents have complained, rightly, that the lack of a sufficient police presence by officers enables criminal activity.

It was a relief to hear from HPD Chief Joe Logan that he would seek to finish the police station, with space for a community policing team and crime reduction unit at the site. But beyond staffing the Waianae station, an immediate plan of action is needed to address gun violence here.

If youths are obtaining guns illegally, those providing them should face harsh penalties. Gambling operations and drug dealing, which often involve guns, must be actively targeted and eliminated.

Aside from policing, Waianae needs community building, and a portion of that effort should focus on communitywide well-being and safety — including essential elements such as youth and citizen engagement, and emergency planning. Many services are available, but interaction is fragmented; what’s needed is a big-picture, resident-guided advisory group, assisted by city government, that can envision a thriving future for Waianae and create a road map of actions to get there.

Other areas of major concern also deserve laser focus, such as improving school attendance rates, working in partnership with the DOE; as well as comprehensive emergency planning, including fire prevention and evacuation planning. The Waianae area faces a high, year-round risk of fire, yet there is just one road in and out — a serious concern that residents have pressed the state and county for help with for years.

On Sept. 16 and 17, the Waianae Comprehensive Health Center and Ka‘ala Farms jointly hosted a “Mauka to Makai” event that was part fire-prevention education, part hands-on exploration of the ahupuaa (mountain to sea) ecosystem and sustainable practices — and significantly, also an exercise in community building.

An important facet of actions such as Mauka to Makai is the bringing together of youth and adults with the common purpose of taking pride in and nurturing their communities.

Waianae Coast residents themselves should choose how to rev up activities, and what focus they should take — but more opportunities like this, building ties between residents and area youth, must be identified.

Waianae Coast communities want change for the better, but they need help and investment. Active, widespread community participation will be key to a successful effort — but to achieve this buy-in, a ramping up of active, coordinated support from government entities and Hawaii nonprofits is also necessary.