Posted on: Tuesday, August 5, 2003

LEE CATALUNA
Assault was shocking in its smallness

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

It was a small incident, but horrific.

Last week I was up at the University of Hawai'i Manoa campus to meet someone for an interview. It was early afternoon. Summer classes were in session.

I was walking through the Kuykendall Hall atrium when I heard these kids yelling.

In this case, "kids" is shorthand for four males somewhere between the ages of 16 and 19. It's hard to tell nowadays under the moppy hair and baggy clothes. Plus, all four were zipping about on those tanker skateboards, so it was hard to get a good look at their faces.

There was a woman — not elderly, but older, with salt and pepper hair. She was clutching textbooks. She asked the boys to move away. They were rolling down the courtyard and launching off the stairs. "There are classes in session," she told them. "You're disturbing the students."

The kids launched into a full-on assault. Not physical, but verbal. They called her every name in the book, including the really bad one.

This woman. This elder. All she did was ask them to knock it off and go someplace else. One of the boys grabbed his crotch with both hands in the international symbol of ultimate insult. They whizzed by her on their skateboards like malevolent flying monkeys. If they were all working for the same company, those kids would have been fired on the spot, the woman would have won a fat settlement and everyone in the vicinity would have had to go through sensitivity training. No one should talk to another human being that way, especially an elder. Especially in Hawai'i.

It was a verbal sexual assault. Not in a dank alley, but in lovely Manoa.

So who's to blame?

UH Campus Security? No, they did their job. They came when they were called. They can't be everywhere at once, and part of the game for these hoodlums was to be wherever security wasn't.

Drugs? Who knows. The parents? One wonders who raised these darlings. Teachers? Schools? Coaches? MTV? Eminem? At a certain point, a kid knows right from wrong and makes a choice. These kids were getting great glee out of harassing this woman. They knew it was wrong, and that was apparently the best part for them.

This small event should not only remind us of how depraved kids can be. It should also make us grateful for all the kids we know who would never do something as insolent, not because they'd be afraid to, but because somewhere along the line, they acquired character.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com