CRIME IN HONOLULU

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 51, 30 January 1932, Page 4

CRIME IN HONOLULU

SHOOTING OF JAPANESE

Writing from Honolulu n resident of that city, in referring to the assault by a Japanese.upon a naval officer’s wife and the subsequent shooting of the man, states that on New Year’s Eve two criminals walked out of a local prison, most of the turnkeys and other assistants being absent. One of the escaped prisoners reached the Kaimuki district a few miles away and criminally assaulted a young married woman. This was the second crime of this nature within *a brief period.. The mail was captured and lodged in prison again, and for his latest offence—one of the worst crimes he could be guilty of —he will merely have a few more years added to hris sentence, whereas severe floggings should be included in the penalty. The other prisoner, a convicted murderer, is still at large and the community is dreadfully upset. The other day a Kanaka policeman shot an innocent Philippino to death, and at the time of writing it was reported that'an American army officer had shot a Japanese who was supposed to have been detected peeping in at the officer’s wife, a bullet stopping him as he was running away. It is reported that last year there were 42 criminal assault cases in Honolulu without a solitary conviction. The writer of the letter states that he and many other residents have been granted permits to carry firearms for the protection of their families. The local police force is not as efficient as it should be and the Governor has appointed National Guardsmen as Territorial police. Due to the shooting of the Philippino and Japanese, there may be serious racial trouble in Honolulu. Since the above was written a further letter to hand from the same source says the inevitable has happened and Honolulu is again seething with racial strife. When Lieut. Massie failed to obtain justice in the local court in connection with the assault upon his young wife, he, being a Southerner by birth and remembering the action taken in his own country when white women were assaulted by negroes, determined upon a line of action against the ringleader—a young Japanese. It was not the intention to kill the man when he was abducted, but simply to subject him to a surgical operation. The victim, however, proved too strong and one of the three abductors fired the shot which killed him. The whole city is divided over this matter, and while most people deElore taking the law into one’s own ands, still in remembering the 41 cases of assault without a conviction last year, they have little sympathy for the victim. After the assault on Mrs Massie, the men, following their arrest and release, strutted around the town attending dances and other social gatherings. Admiral 'Stirling warned the authorities then that they should be locked up until after the trial was concluded, but the accused were allowed to wanderi about the city, with feeling running high in the enlisted personnel of the army and navy. A Japanese named Ida, one of the five men accused of the crime, was taken by naval men and severely flogged. The letter continues: —"Before I go to bed I put six bullets, 38 calibre, in ,a Colt revolver and go to sleep hoping that I will not have to use it during the night. We have lots of bad blood in these Islands and the ‘melting pot’ is beginning to boil, as I have predicted it would for years. As time goes on and the numbers unable to obtain work increase the pot will boil further when Honolulu will be anything but a nice place to live in unless the authorities'organise a police force free from politics and show determination in handling the men of criminal tendencies who infest this community,”.