A jury on Thursday found two Native Hawaiian men guilty of a hate crime for the 2014 beating of a White man who was fixing up a house he purchased in their remote Maui neighborhood.
Lawyers for Alo-Kaonohi and Aki did not deny the assault but said it was not a hate crime. It was not race that sparked the attack, they said, but Kunzelman's entitled and disrespectful attitude.
Kunzelman said he decided to take two pistols to Maui after hearing that a contractor he hired to do mold remediation had been assaulted when he showed up and after his realtor said the close-knit community of Native Hawaiians had a problem with White people. "It's not a hate crime to assault somebody and in the course of it use the word 'haole,'" court-appointed attorney Lynn Panagakos said during her opening statement. She noted that Aki is part-Hawaiian and part-haole.Megan Kau, a Native Hawaiian attorney not involved in the case, said it depends on the tone and manner in which the word is used.
"The jury's verdict confirms that the rule of law serves to protect all persons in our community from vicious assaults, no matter the color of their skin," U.S. Attorney Clare E. Connors said."When people commit violent crimes against someone out of hatred for the victim's race, the Department of Justice will ensure they face criminal consequences in a court of law."
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