A Hawaii man who had to excruciatingly wait for prosecutors to determine that he acted in apparent self-defense will not face criminal charges.
That’s the good news received by Rishard Keamo-Carnate, 42, after a violent encounter that erupted Labor Day weekend following a protracted dispute with a Waianae neighbor.
According to prosecutors, 58-year-old Hiram Silva shot and killed three women in the confrontation and injured two others. He is also accused of using a front-end loader to attack and destroy several vehicles on his neighbors’ property.
Despite the seemingly obvious nature of the tragic incident, Hawaii’s draconian gun laws and murky self-defense statutes resulted in Keamo-Carnate’s arrest. He was released about 20 hours later, pending the investigation, and had to worry about whether he would be incarcerated long-term for defending his family.
A dispute that stretched back years centered on Silva’s apparent penchant for throwing disruptive parties on his property. Authorities were called to the scene several times, but the incidents continued.
Keamo-Carnate told Hawaii News Now that he was forced to act when his children became scared. “That’s when we decided we had to change something and do something different, because our kids should not be fearful of our home or where we live.”
The tipping point came in March 2021, when Silva allegedly shone a light onto the property and threatened to kill his neighbors because they complained about a party he threw.
Keamo-Carnate said he called the police, but they claimed to be powerless and could not do anything about the disturbance. Facing what were now actual threats, the father decided to act.
He recalled, “We never owned guns. We didn’t like guns. We purchased it after we were threatened. They just basically collected dust. We never know if we were going to use it.”
Then, the legal weapon became essential to protecting his family from an apparently violent neighbor and may very well have saved lives. A wise decision was made, and another followed when prosecutors reached the obvious conclusion that the case was one of self-defense.
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