When it was over, a woman was dead, two other people were seriously injured and the lives of four Oahu families were shattered after a roadway shooting spree that police said appeared to be random attacks by a gunman.
Tammy Nguyen, a 54-year-old Palolo mother of 10, died of gunshot wounds she sustained when a man walked up to her van — idling at a red light in Kaimuki — and opened fire. A 16-year-old girl was in the van with Nguyen; she was not shot.
Amielou Asuncion, a 24-year-old Kalihi resident, was in serious but stable condition at the Queen's Medical Center after being shot by a passing driver as she was driving west on the H-1 freeway in Kapalama.
Samson Naupoto, a 38-year-old Salt Lake man, was in stable condition at the Queen's Medical Center from gunshot wounds, also along H-1 in Kapalama.
Being held in connection with the shooting of the three motorists was Wahiawa resident Toby Stangel, 28, the son of a North Shore minister.
Stangel is facing a second-degree murder charge, first-degree attempted murder (in the case of multiple victims) as well as several firearms violations, police said.
Police Maj. Richard Robinson, head of HPD's Criminal Investigation Division, said the shootings appear to be random acts.
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It seems like anytime a violent incident in Hawaii happens, you always hear people express shock that something like that happened in Hawaii.
Well, I'm not shocked at all!
My attitude is - If It Happened Somewhere, It Can Happen Anywhere!
Just because we live in some tropical paradise, that doesn't mean all the negative side of human nature goes away! Stuff happens!
I don't want to spread paranoia! I just want people to put away this BS naive attitude of "this is Hawaii, it doesn't happen here"
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It reminds of this attitude before Columbine shooting in 1999. Before the Columbine shooting, people thought of gun violence at schools as something that only took place in schools in "ghetto minority schools" or "rural Southern white schools". But Columbine High School didn't match either profiles. It was located in an upper-class European-American community in Colorado. Now, all of a sudden, the average middle-class American wants to take school violence seriously.
That should've been enough to alert anyone that If It Happened Somewhere, It Can Happen Anywhere!
Yet, people in Hawaii act like "school shootings only happen in the mainland, we're not like that"
But last month at a middle school located in a middle class community of Pearl City, HI some kid found a gun in a park and brought it to school to show off to his friends. Obviously, that kid had no training in gun saftey since he accidentally shot his friend.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/Gun_causes_minor_injuries_at_Highlands_Intermediate_School.html
And yet, many people in Hawaii are soooooo shocked something like that happened in Hawaii. I'm not! If It Happened Somewhere, It Can Happen Anywhere!
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I also notice many people here get paranoid about tourists being scared of by anything negative about Hawaii.
You might think I'm exaggarating. But I still remember people expressing concerns about "tourists being scared away" after the UH football team got into a fight after a game shown on ESPN!
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2003/12/hawaii-bowl-scrap-weve-heard-all.html
The fact that 2pac was killed in Las Vegas didn't scare many Hawaii people from visiting their favorite vacation spot, which happens to be Las Vegas.
The fact that Hurricane Katrina exposed the violent disfunctions of New Orleans (usually nicknamed "Murder Capital of America") didn't stop many Hawaii people from visiting that city when the UH football team played in the Sugar Bowl.
If people are curious, and they got the money, they'll come, regardless of whatever scary stories they might hear.
I wrote on the topic back in August 2005 at http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2005/08/images-of-hawaii-everytime-something.html
Plus, with all this "ghetto tourism" or "slum tours" occurring in places like Los Angeles, Rio De Janeiro, Mumbai and Nairobi, it's less likely that tourists would be scared to visit Hawaii.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/travel/09heads.html (on slum tours in foreign nations)
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/05/local/la-me-southla-tours5-2009dec05 (tours of South-Central LA)
