Escapee has long history of trouble
| • | Police conduct manhunt for 3 Halawa escapees |
By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer
This isn't the first time that prison escapee Albert Batalona has been the target of a massive police hunt.
Batalona, 28, one of three men who escaped from Halawa high-security prison early yesterday, had been serving a life term without parole for his role in one of Hawai'i's most violent and potentially deadly bank robberies.
He was convicted as one of four masked robbers in the brazen armed takeover of the Kahala branch of American Savings Bank on July 7, 1999. He also fired 26 bullets from a fully automatic AR-15 assault rifle at a police officer during the robbery.
Batalona then fled from the bank by commandeering a car. He was arrested eight days later outside an 'Aiea bar after a massive manhunt and a tearful plea to a television station that all he wanted was to get his son back from Child Protective Services.
Batalona, a Kaimuki High graduate who worked at Diamond Head Gun Club, an indoor shooting range in Waikiki that has since closed, was married in May 1995 to a 16-year-old girl who gave birth to the son in December of that year, according to court records.
The couple separated in 1997 with the boy living with Batalona and other relatives.
During his trial in the armed bank robbery case, Batalona never disputed that he participated in the robbery, but he strenuously denied that he ever intended to shoot Honolulu Police Officer Fred Rosskopf.
Rosskopf was not shot, but testified that he thought he was going to die. He said he dived for cover behind a parked car when a man dressed in dark clothing and wearing a ski mask began shooting at him. As he crouched behind the car, Rosskopf said, he could hear bullets whizzing by over his head while others struck the car.
The others who took part in the robbery — Sean Matsunaga, Jacob Hayme and Roger Dailey — were prosecuted in federal court.
Steven Alm, U.S. attorney for Hawai'i at the time and now a state judge, conferred with City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle and the two concluded Batalona would face a much stiffer sentence if convicted in state court of the attempted first-degree murder charge for shooting at the officer.
In imposing the sentence, Circuit Judge Marie Milks referred to a presentence report, which portrayed Batalona as self-centered and whose troubles dated to preschool when he was expelled for beating another child. He later began using crystal methamphetamine and marijuana and faced a child-abuse charge involving his son. At the time of Batalona's sentencing in 2000, his lawyer said the son had been or would be adopted.
During the sentencing, Milks scolded Batalona when he maintained he wasn't trying to kill the officer and suggested that Ba-talona think of what he does to others instead of dwelling on his own shame and embarrassment. "I think that would be the first for you growing out of your childish attitude," the judge told him. "You're too old to blame everything on your past."
The judge imposed the mandatory life term without parole, the state's harshest sentence, which kept Batalona behind bars until yesterday.
Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8030.
