Barely a week after the Honolulu Police Commission flagged Chief Arthur “Joe” Logan’s communications problems in his annual evaluation, he gave an unfortunate demonstration at his news conference on a tragic Waianae shooting that left four dead.
Logan capably explained the events in which Hiram James Silva Sr., 59, rammed a front loader into the home of the neighboring Keamo family, shot and killed three and wounded two others before being shot and killed himself by Rishard Kanaka Keamo-Carnate, 42.
But Logan’s explanation turned somewhere between unsatisfying and bizarre on why Keamo-Carnate was arrested for second-degree murder and detained 40 hours before being released pending further investigation.
It appeared clear self-defense. After shooting his victims, the assailant shot holes in four fuel drums on his front loader and seemed ready to set the Keamo house and its occupants ablaze before he was stopped. Keamo-Carnate could have better spent those 40 hours with his traumatized family.
If there was reason to believe it wasn’t self-defense — his handgun was registered, according to Logan — the chief needed to give some hint of why instead of leaving the public baffled. Saying he couldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation, the same stance as Prosecutor Steven Alm, was weak.
Nowhere does the law say, “Thou shalt not comment on ongoing investigations.”
There are times it’s ill-advised, certainly, but in most cases it’s a dodge by overly bureaucratic officials to avoid reasonable questions the public has about their actions.
Logan cited state law in Keamo-Carnate’s arrest, saying Hawaii isn’t a “stand your ground” state in which citizens can defend themselves with deadly force without obligation to try to retreat from the danger before shooting.
“Even if you have a license to carry, if you are an individual who discharges a firearm that is involved in injuring another person, you will more than likely, if not almost guaranteed, going to be arrested,” Logan said. “It’s just one of those things, doesn’t matter where the person was, you discharge a firearm … you’ve injured another person, you are going to be arrested.”
Seriously? Police have no choice but to arrest first and investigate later? If it seems clear self-defense, they can’t exercise the judgment to investigate first and then decide whether evidence warrants arrest?
The state law on self-defense says, “Use of deadly force is justifiable under this section if the actor believes that deadly force is necessary to protect himself against death, serious bodily injury, kidnapping, rape, or forcible sodomy.”
Faulting Keamo-Carnate for not retreating to personal safety instead of shooting seems dubious. Even if he could have escaped himself without firing, his family was under assault and in mortal danger.
Keamo-Carnate represented no apparent danger to the community or a flight risk; it’s difficult to understand why the facts couldn’t have been sorted out without his arrest until they showed him somehow culpable.
His attorney, Michael Green, is chattering freely about this ongoing investigation without being struck by lightning or sanctioned by legal canons.
The more law enforcers fail to make us a common-sense state, the more damages he rings up.
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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
