Local attorneys say they’ve never heard of the federal government prosecuting Native Hawaiians for hate crimes before this case.
HONOLULU — A jury on Thursday found two Native Hawaiian men guilty of a hate crime for the 2014 beating of a white man who was fixing up a house he purchased in their remote Maui neighborhood.
Prosecutors alleged during the trial in U.S. District Court in Honolulu that Alo-Kaonohi and Aki were motivated by Christopher Kunzelman’s race when they punched, kicked and used a shovel to beat him in Kahakuloa village. Kunzelman was left with injuries including a concussion, two broken ribs and head and abdominal trauma, prosecutors said.
Kunzelman testified that while Alo-Kaonohi and Aki beat him, they told him no white people would ever live in Kahakuloa village. However, he acknowledged that’s not heard in video recorded during the attack.Kunzelman said he decided to take two pistols to Maui after hearing that a contractor he hired to do mold remediation had been assaulted when he showed up and after his realtor said the close-knit community of Native Hawaiians had a problem with white people.
“It’s not a hate crime to assault somebody and in the course of it use the word ‘haole,’” court-appointed attorney Lynn Panagakos said during her opening statement. She noted that Aki is part-Hawaiian and part-haole.“‘Haole’ has multiple meanings depending on the context,” she said. “It’s an accepted word.”
Wiping away tears outside the courthouse following the verdict, Alo-Kaonohi’s father, Chico Kaonohi, said bias was not a motivation behind the attack and “‘Haole’ is not a racial word.”Attorneys for both defendants declined to comment Thursday. Prosecutors did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
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