Public Safety
Waianae Shootings May Spur A Push To Strengthen Hawaii’s Self-Defense Laws

Not long after the recent shooting deaths at a party on Oahu’s West Side, where a man rammed his tractor into several vehicles at a neighbor’s house and then opened fire, Darius Kila was on the scene.

Kila, a Democrat who represents nearby Nanakuli and Maili in the Hawaii House of Representatives, said he was horrified by the Aug. 31 shootings that took the lives of three women. The fourth person to die was the tractor driver, Hiram Silva, who fatally shot the women and wounded two other people before he was shot and killed by Rishard Keamo-Carnate, according to Honolulu police.

Keamo-Carnate was arrested on suspicion of murder in the second degree but later released. Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm has not commented on the matter, which is under investigation.

While Honolulu Police Department officers would not allow the legislator to enter an active crime scene, “I just wanted to make sure everybody was OK,” Kila said Friday.

But Kila wants to do more than that. He wants to amend state law to reassure his constituents that, in a worst-case scenario like what happened late on a Saturday night on Waianae Valley Road, “they can defend their loved ones and don’t have to worry about some form of legal repercussion.”