Posted on: Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Waikiki harbor brawl leaves 2 dead, 2 injured

By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer

A simple request to turn down a blaring car stereo deteriorated into a melee in which two men died and two people were injured at the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor parking lot early yesterday morning, witnesses said.

One man was critically wounded and a woman was left in serious condition with stab wounds to her arms and chest.

Police arrested three men and a boy for questioning in a homicide investigation stemming from the 2 a.m. brawl behind the Hilton Hawaiian Village lagoon in Waikiki. Possibly five others are being sought as well. The men are 18, 20 and 22, police said. Police released the 18- and 22-year-old and the juvenile pending further investigation.

Friends identified one of the dead men as Kirk Hodges, 50, a former professional surfer from Kailua. He had been stabbed multiple times, friends said. Police said the other dead man apparently drowned after diving into the boat harbor while fleeing from friends of one of the stabbing victims.

Police homicide Lt. Bill Kato said the confrontation involved seven to 10 males who arrived at the parking lot in three cars and a group of "surfers who sleep in their vans."

The late-arriving group was initially cooperative after a request to turn down their music, but quickly grew belligerent, witnesses said. Just as quickly, the cry "Look out, he's got a knife" gave way to violence.

Hodges' girlfriend of the past 2 1/2 years, who asked that she be identified only as Val because she fears retaliation, said she was sleeping in an older Chevrolet van with Hodges when she was awakened by a woman calling for help.

"All these guys, maybe eight or nine of them, pulled up in two cars and a truck, and were playing loud music when (the woman) asked them to turn it down because people in the vans were trying to sleep," Val said.

Members of the group of young men said they had come to the public parking lot to "hang out and drink" but complied with the request to turn the music down, Val said.

"Then (the woman) noticed one of the cars was parked all kapakahi (askew) and she told them they should straighten it out so they wouldn't attract a lot attention from the cops and get a ticket or get arrested."

Then they started yelling obscenities at the woman and told her to mind her own business, Val said.

Meanwhile, the commotion had drawn the attention of another parking lot regular, a man. He was walking toward the woman when the two were encircled by the group of young men, most of whom appeared to be in their early 20s, Val said.

"By now, Kirk was awake, and he got out of our van and was walking to the group of guys mostly to be another presence with (the man and the woman)," she said.

"I heard somebody yell, 'Look out, he's got a knife,' and I went back behind my van and was dialing 911 on my cell phone when Kirk came over and said, 'I've been stabbed.' "

Val said she handed her cell phone to someone else and began to apply direct pressure to the multiple wounds in Hodges' back.

"The blood was just gushing out; he coughed several times and it just sprayed out of him," she said.

She said Hodges slumped down next to the wheel of the van and waited for a city ambulance to arrive. Paramedics stopped first to check on the other two stabbing victims about 30 feet away as she frantically motioned them to continue on to where Hodges sat.

"They were using a squeeze bag to help him breathe, and they put a tube down his throat but then they took it back out again," she said. "They wouldn't let me go in the ambulance with him."

Val said she made her own way to The Queen's Medical Center, where she learned Hodges had been declared dead on arrival.

One man was listed in critical condition upon his arrival, police said. The woman was reported to be in serious but stable condition after surgery for her stab wounds, shaken friends and a brother said yesterday morning at the boat harbor.

Gordon Mann, 53, said as many as seven vans park overnight in the lot.

"The police don't hassle us because they know we respect them and they respect us — they know we take care of the place and don't make trouble," Mann said.

He said he recognized the man who stabbed Hodges as the brother of a man with whom Mann had gotten into a fistfight about a year ago.

Aliot Moepono, 41, sat in the shade of a palm tree at an aluminum picnic table set up on the ribbon of sand between the parking lot and the lagoon, mourning the loss of a friend of more than 20 years.

"I brought this table from home," Moepono said, pushing away tears from behind his wrap-around sunglasses. "Kirk was eating dinner with us last night, potluck. We were all talking story and later on, he move his van across to the other side of the parking lot.

"He said he wanted to be closer to the sound of the waves — that he wanted to go to sleep listening to the waves and wanted the waves to be the first thing he heard when he woke up."

Moepono said that he, too, was awakened by the shouting coming from the other side of the parking lot.

"I got out and Kirk was already on the ground next to his van," Moepono said.

He said members of the group of young men, including the two suspected stabbers, began to scatter as police arrived.

He said he and another man chased five or six of the men from the other group toward the Ilikai Hotel and that the man who witnesses believe stabbed Hodges dived into the harbor to try to escape. He was later found floating in the harbor and was taken to Straub Clinic and Hospital, where he died, police said.

Police recovered a folding knife with a four-inch handle and equally long blade near the point where the apparent drowning victim dived into the water, said Kato, the homicide lieutenant.

Moepono could only lament the loss of his friend Hodges.

"If anything, he should have died in the water catching a wave," Moepono said, his voice trailing off.

Advertiser staff writer Rod Ohira contributed to this report. Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-7412.