Two Native Hawaiian men wouldn\u2019t have brutally beaten a man if he weren\u2019t white, a U.S. judge said Thursday in sentencing them to yearslong prison terms for a hate crime in a case that reflects Hawaii\u2019s nuanced and complicated relationship with race.
\nA jury convicted Kaulana Alo-Kaonohi and Levi Aki Jr. in November, finding that they were motivated by Christopher Kunzelman\u2019s race when they punched, kicked and used a shovel to beat him in 2014. His injuries included a concussion, two broken ribs and head trauma.
\nLocal lawyers believe this is the first time the U.S. has prosecuted Native Hawaiians for hate crimes. The unique case highlights the struggles between Native Hawaiians who are adamant about not having their culture erased and people who move to Hawaii without knowing or considering its history and racial dynamics.
\nAlluding to the uniqueness of the case, U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright said the attack is different from other hate crimes, such as going to an African American church and shooting or targeting a nightclub full of people from a certain ethnic group or sexual orientation.
\nAttorneys for Aki and Alo-Kaonohi say it wasn\u2019t Kunzelman\u2019s race that provoked them, but his entitled and disrespectful attitude.
\nSeabright said Thursday he understands the argument that Alo-Kaonohi isn\u2019t racist, but, \u201cYou were a racist on that day.\u201d He sentenced Alo-Kaonohi to six and a half years in prison.
\nHe later sentenced Aki to four years and two months in prison.
\nTensions began over a dilapidated, oceanfront home in Kahakuloa, a small village off a narrow road with hairpin turns and sweeping ocean views at the end of a valley on Maui, an island known for luxurious resorts.
\nGrowing up in the village, Alo-Kaonohi would \u201chunt, fish, farm, live off the land,\u201d he wrote in a letter to Seabright. \u201cTo make a little money, I would sell coconuts, mango, flowers, bananas on the side of the road to tourists who would be passing through to see the beautiful scenery of Kahakuloa.\u201d
\nKunzelman and his wife purchased the house sight-unseen for $175,000 because she wanted to leave Scottsdale, Arizona, to live near the ocean after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
\n\u201cWe loved Maui; we loved the people,\u201d Lori Kunzelman told The Associated Press, describing how her husband planned to fix up the house himself.<\/p>\n
apnews<\/p>\n
Tags\uff1ahate, race<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two Native Hawaiian men wouldn\u2019t have brutally beaten a man if he weren\u2019t white, a U.S. judge said Thursday in sentencing them to yearslong prison terms for a hate crime in a case that reflects Hawaii\u2019s nuanced and complicated relationship with race. A jury convicted Kaulana Alo-Kaonohi and Levi Aki Jr. in November, finding that they were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6860,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[1394,1874,2721],"class_list":["post-6858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-crime","tag-hate","tag-hawaii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6861,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6858\/revisions\/6861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}