Posted on: Friday, May 27, 2005

Fatal fight at harbor lot brings patrols

By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer

Police presence has increased dramatically in the parking lot next to the Ala Wai Boat Harbor after a melee May 16 that left two people dead.

Capt. Alan Arita, whose Waikiki police district includes the boat harbor, said the increase in patrols through the area is the direct result of the fatal brawl.

Arita said the stepped up enforcement efforts will likely continue for several months.

"Or at least until we are certain things have cooled down there," Arita said.

Area regular Aliot Moepono is already feeling the pinch. He said that during the past week, police confiscated a bicycle from him that they claimed was not properly registered, gave him a ticket for illegal camping because they found a grill on the sidewalk near his van and assumed it was his, and issued a $287 citation, claiming the tinted windows on his older-model Toyota van are too dark.

"I think they (the police) just want us out of here," Moepono said. "But that's OK; I'll see them in court. I plan to fight these tickets."

Moepono, stabbing victim Kirk Hodges and a handful of others were sleeping in their vans in the parking lot the night Hodges was killed. Moepono said he expects many of those who stay overnight in their vans at the harbor will move elsewhere after a memorial service for Hodges on tomorrow.

At a news conference the day Hodges was killed, police described those who were sleeping in the vans when the fight began as "surfers."

But live-aboard boat owners at the harbor and others who frequently park where the stabbing took place said the vans are always present and occupied by homeless people who flaunt the law and treat public property as if it were their own.

"They are not just occasional surfers parking there overnight," said one Ala Wai boat owner who asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals. "Their special status there entitles them to park there day and night, and not be bothered by the police.

"They also put cones up when they leave the parking lot so that they can reserve 'their' parking spots for their return. They put up hammocks, tents and tarps. Although I have never been bothered by them personally, it always seemed very unfair to me that they were given this special status. It seems to me too that the number of families and vehicles having this special status has grown over the years," the boat owner said.

But Arita said trying to keep people from sleeping overnight in a van at the harbor is far more difficult than it might appear.

Some of the stalls in the harbor allow parking for up to 24 hours and up to 72 hours for stalls set aside for tow vehicles and trailers.

"If someone is sitting up in their van when the officers pass by, there's not very much we can do," Arita said. "When we arrest someone for camping in a public park, we have to establish that they are, in fact, camping — that they are sleeping with their bedroll all laid out and so on."

In the case of the vans at the harbor, heavily tinted windows or curtains as well as personal belongings that are stacked high in the van make it virtually impossible to tell if someone is sleeping inside, Arita said.

Nonetheless, officers make routine sweeps through the harbor to look for parking and camping violations. But some van owners have developed an enhanced feel for how long they can leave it in one spot before the van begins to attract attention from the police, Arita said.

Part of the enforcement problem boils down to police manpower, Arita said. The arrival of an aircraft carrier group at Pearl Harbor can mean a sudden influx of 4,000 people, many of whom immediately head for Waikiki with wallets full of cash saved up during months at sea, he said.

The issue of people who are homeless, or otherwise, sleeping on public property is not just limited to the Ala Wai harbor.

"We've got our share of problems every night at Kapi'olani Park, other parks in Waikiki and the whole island in general," Arita said.

Sharon Black, a Honolulu Police Department outreach worker who frequently deals with the homeless and mentally ill, says the homeless issue is a complex one with no easy solutions.

"So if the police chase all of these people out of the boat harbor and that parking lot (where Hodges was killed), where are they going to go? They are human beings, they are not objects or items, they have to go someplace," Black said.

People who are annoyed or frustrated by people who sleep in vans on public property should channel that angry energy into finding solutions to the problem, Black said.

"Some of those people sleeping in vans are working, but just aren't earning enough to make ends meet. What are we going to do, throw them in jail for not making enough?" she said.

Finding solutions to the problem is everyone's responsibility and shouldn't be left to the police or various social services agencies, she said.

"I know there are some very angry people out there who like to say, 'Why can't the police just arrest them all?' I'll tell you what, police are compassionate people, too. They don't like to enforce the law if it means people are going to suffer."

Homelessness is a community issue and must be approached from all directions, Black said.

"If everybody in the community would just make one small commitment to the problem, we would be on our way to finding real solutions," Black said.

The parking lot regulars said they were awakened by a loud argument about 2 a.m. involving one of their own, a woman, and several carloads of young men from Kalihi.

Friends of Hodges said he was trying to intervene in a rapidly escalating confrontation between the groups when he was stabbed several times in the back.

Moepono awoke, tried to help his friend of several decades who lay dying next to his own van and wound up chasing the young man who police believe stabbed Hodges and two other people, a man and a woman, who survived.

Police believe Frederick Flores, 18, was the lone stabber. He dived into the harbor while running from the scene of the stabbing and later drowned.

Police arrested Flores' two brothers and a third man, but released them without charges. Police have said it is possible that no one else will be charged.

The two deaths prompted complaints from a number of people who said the incident might have been prevented if police and, to a lesser extent, enforcement officers from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources had taken a more proactive approach to keep people from sleeping in their vans overnight at the harbor.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-7412.