Deadly canal attack yielded no 911 calls

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

On a busy Waikiki street during Tuesday morning's rush hour, with condominiums towering over him, Jack Wyatt was pushed into a corner of obscurity in which he died, unseen.

Wyatt was obscured visually — he had struck his head and floated face down in the Ala Wai Canal, drowning in shallow water against its makai wall. Parked cars blocked the view of one witness, a cabbie driving past who saw him pushed but did not see him fall into the water, police said.

He was obscured by timing. Five minutes after Wyatt was pushed, a patrol officer was flagged down by a woman who was attacked. But the officer, who chased after the alleged assailant, Cline Kahue, did not know Wyatt had been assaulted.

He was hampered by communications barriers. The officer who finally was led to his body by a passing jogger had no idea Wyatt had just been assaulted, or that there had been any assaults in the area at all. He was assigned to District 6 (Waikiki); he didn't hear the discussion of the attacks because the officers in pursuit were from District 7 (East Honolulu), broadcasting on a different channel.

And he was obstructed by a language barrier. A woman on her 11th-floor lanai across the street, who saw him pushed in the water, spoke no English and did not know to call 911.

Nobody called 911, police said.

With police and prosecutors still piecing together the case against Kahue, who was charged this week with second-degree murder and held on $100,000 bail, authorities said Wyatt's death was the culmination of unfortunate events that kept anyone from getting to him for about 20 minutes.

Lt. Bill Kato was surprised to find that, in the midst of all the commotion, the call for witnesses yielded so few people.

"We figured between 8 and 8:30 Ala Wai is going to be choked with traffic," he said. "Plus, there's always a lot of people around. We were really surprised that only one (initial witness) came forward."

If anyone could have saved Wyatt, they would have had to act fast. Dr. William Goodhue, the city deputy medical examiner who performed the autopsy established the cause of death as "asphyxia due to drowning due to assaultive fall into water."

Wyatt had suffered a concussion and must have been knocked unconscious as a result of the fall, he said. He continued breathing while unconscious and drowned "within a very few minutes," Goodhue said.

The 11th-floor witness estimated that Wyatt was pushed into the water at 8:07 a.m. Seven minutes later, the jogger spotted an officer who was citing parked vehicles across the street about "a body in the canal," Kato said.

"He's probably thinking that the body was there a day, two days or overnight," Kato said. "All he knows is a body is in the canal, and we do get those every once in a while... he's not aware of what's going on."

That officer who finally found Wyatt's body was unaware of the events because his radio picks up alerts for the Waikiki district, he said. The officer pursuing Kahue near the McCully Street bridge happened to be in the area but was an East Honolulu district officer, broadcasting on another channel.

Kahue was arrested in connection with three attacks separated by about five minutes, Kato said. In addition to Wyatt's murder, for which he was charged on Wednesday, Kahue also allegedly punched a woman at the Launiu Street intersection and then shoved a second woman into the canal near Olohana Street.

He fell into the water with the second woman; both got out — the woman fled in fear, Kato said — and Kahue allegedly dived back in from the bridge. He allegedly swam to the mauka side of the canal, where he was arrested.

After the call for more witnesses, Kato found the cab driver, who got a good view of the assailant's face; together with the high-rise resident, there was enough witness information to file charges, he said.

He had also e-mailed some of the buildings in the area, but Randy Ahlo, general manager of the Island Colony, said typical morning habits combined to make it possible for someone to perish in such a public place.

"At that time of day, there's not a lot of people typically sitting on the lanai," he said. "People who are working are usually headed out, and those on vacation are out on the beach, doing their thing."

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.