Hawaii's Escalating Gang Violence Crisis: Why Behavioral Threat Assessment Must Replace Reactive Policing
- CrisisWire
- Dec 9, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
The Waianae Coast has become ground zero for Hawaii's most disturbing crime trend: gang-related shootings and homicides that federal authorities warn represent a systemic failure of traditional law enforcement approaches. Between January and September 2024, Waianae experienced five separate shooting incidents claiming 11 lives—including the August mass shooting where 58-year-old Hiram Silva killed three women before being shot by a neighbor in self-defense.
Honolulu City Council Member Andria Tupola, whose district encompasses the Waianae Coast, introduced Resolution 275 in November 2024 demanding state legislation to combat criminal street gangs. The resolution cites Honolulu Police Department data showing increases in drug violations, gambling offenses, and homicides compared to 2023. Yet Hawaii remains one of only ten states without statutes specifically defining criminal street gangs or providing enhanced penalties for gang-related convictions.
This legislative gap reveals a fundamental misunderstanding: more laws and longer sentences won't prevent violence that behavioral threat assessment could intercept before weapons are ever deployed.
The Pattern Law Enforcement Refuses to Acknowledge
The Hiram Silva mass shooting perfectly illustrates why reactive policing fails. Silva threatened to shoot the Keamo family in 2021 and 2022, according to attorney Michael Green. Police responded to disputes between the neighbors in 2023. The Keamo family filed multiple complaints about Silva's illegal commercial venue, rowdy parties, and intimidation tactics. Silva had a documented history of firing weapons while intoxicated, illegal dumping through his company SER Trucking, and operating an unpermitted event space.
Every element of a behavioral pathway to violence was visible for three years.
Yet no systematic threat assessment protocol existed to evaluate Silva's escalating behaviors, coordinate intervention strategies, or prevent the September 1 massacre that killed Courtney Raymond-Arakaki, Cherell Keamo, and Jessyca Amasiu.
Honolulu Police Chief Joe Logan called the incident "a neighbor-on-neighbor dispute" unrelated to other Waianae shootings—as if isolated classification somehow diminishes the preventable nature of targeted violence preceded by years of warning signs.
Waianae's 2024 Violence Timeline: A Preventable Crisis
August 6: A 31-year-old man was fatally shot at Waianae Boat Harbor, causing Waianae High School to enter lockdown on the first day of school.
August 14: A man shot three people in a Waianae home before being killed by police.
August 15: Separate shootings wounded a 15-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man in Waianae.
September 1: Hiram Silva killed three women and wounded two others before being shot by Rishard Keamo-Carnate in self-defense.
January 20: An innocent bystander was killed by a stray bullet during a shooting that began with an argument at Waianae Longs Drugs.
This represents five major shooting incidents in eight months within a single Oahu district.
Yet HPD crime dashboard data shows only five murders and non-negligent manslaughters recorded for District 8 (Ewa Beach to Kaena Point) through August—a figure that hadn't been updated to include the four Silva shooting deaths even weeks after the incident.
Hawaii's gun violence data collection is so unreliable that the Attorney General's Office admits "research into understanding and reducing violent crime and gun violence is virtually impossible." County police departments report data differently, struggle to define violent crime consistently, and cannot even determine how many crimes involved licensed versus unlicensed firearms without reading hundreds of records individually.
This data vacuum ensures that behavioral threat assessment—which depends on pattern recognition across multiple incidents—cannot function effectively at the system level.
Why Increased Police Presence Fails in Waianae
Following the August shooting cluster, city and state officials held a press conference on August 16 pledging to combat gun violence. HPD Chief Logan promised to deploy more officers to the Leeward Side. Governor Josh Green, Mayor Rick Blangiardi, and legislative representatives declared "enough is enough."
The Department of Law Enforcement deployed four to six additional vehicles during mid-August weekends and began regular patrols at Waianae Small Boat Harbor—a known hotspot for confrontations. The plan was to continue enhanced presence through October.
Yet another mass shooting occurred on September 1, during the period of increased law enforcement presence.
Waianae Neighborhood Board member Kalei Wilbur told reporters he appreciated the officer influx but believes "a higher police presence alone isn't sufficient for preventing violent crime." He noted that increased patrols simply push confrontations to new locations rather than addressing root causes.
Research published by ASIS International confirms Wilbur's assessment: visible deterrence measures achieve only 19-23% effectiveness against targeted violence when individuals have already progressed down the pathway to violence. By contrast, behavioral threat assessment programs that identify concerning individuals in the pre-attack stage achieve 87-91% violence prevention rates.
Chief Logan inadvertently revealed law enforcement's fundamental limitation: "Unfortunately, criminals are criminals and from time to time they choose to commit a violent act and they may wait for police to pass by. As a police officer, you're trying to be everywhere and help the community, but unfortunately it's just difficult to do that. And we can't be in everyone's home."
Behavioral threat assessment doesn't need to be in every home—it needs to be embedded in the community intelligence systems that identify concerning individuals before they reach the attack stage.
The Gang Violence Legislation Hawaii Actually Needs
Council Member Tupola's Resolution 275 notes that more than 40 U.S. jurisdictions have statutes specifically defining criminal street gangs with enhanced penalties for crimes committed in service of gangs. The resolution requests state legislation to provide law enforcement and prosecutors with "tools to address criminal street gangs and related offenses, including those related to drugs, firearms, and gambling."
But enhanced sentencing for gang crimes addresses only the back end of the violence pipeline—after crimes have been committed, victims traumatized, and communities destabilized. What Hawaii critically lacks is front-end prevention: systematic behavioral threat assessment protocols that identify gang-involved individuals exhibiting violence warning signs.
The U.S. Department of Justice reports that "large national street gangs pose the greatest threat because they smuggle, produce, transport, and distribute large quantities of illicit drugs and rely on extreme violence. Local street gangs often imitate the larger, more powerful national gangs in order to gain respect from their rivals."
This imitation dynamic—local gangs escalating violence to match perceived national gang standards—creates a behavioral escalation pattern that threat assessment professionals can identify and disrupt through intervention before violence occurs.
What CrisisWire Provides: Community-Based Behavioral Intelligence
Traditional gang suppression relies on arrests, prosecutions, and incarceration—all reactive measures that occur after violence. CrisisWire's approach implements community-based behavioral threat assessment that prevents violence through early intervention:
Multi-Disciplinary Threat Assessment Teams
We train community organizations, social service agencies, schools, healthcare providers, and law enforcement to identify individuals exhibiting concerning behaviors. This creates the intelligence network that identifies gang recruitment patterns, escalating grievances, and pathway behaviors toward violence.
Community Reporting Systems
Most community members observe warning signs but lack channels to report concerns without triggering immediate arrest. We establish confidential reporting mechanisms that allow intervention before criminal behavior occurs, balancing public safety with civil liberties.
Intervention Protocols
Rather than waiting for gang members to commit prosecutable offenses, threat assessment enables interventions ranging from voluntary counseling to emergency protective orders, depending on assessed risk level. Our protocols draw from federal guidelines documented in Making Prevention a Reality.
Data Integration
Hawaii's inability to track gang-related crime patterns stems from siloed data systems. We implement information-sharing frameworks that allow pattern recognition across police districts, social services, schools, and healthcare—the cross-system visibility that identifies escalating threats.
Youth Engagement
Community members repeatedly identify youth involvement as a core factor in Waianae violence. Our prevention programs target at-risk youth before gang recruitment occurs, using behavioral indicators to identify vulnerable individuals and connect them with intervention resources.
The Waianae Coast Needs Prevention, Not Just Prosecution
Council Member Tupola told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser: "We are working hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, since the last shootings we've had in July and ongoing issues in Waianae." She emphasized that the resolution "addresses offenders"—the individuals who have already committed crimes.
But what about the individuals who haven't yet committed violence but are progressing down that pathway? What about the neighbors who observe concerning behaviors but don't know how to report them? What about the family members who recognize escalation but lack intervention resources? What about the community organizations that interact with at-risk youth but have no systematic framework to identify gang recruitment patterns?
These are the gaps that behavioral threat assessment fills—and traditional law enforcement cannot.
Waianae Neighborhood Board Chair who knew both the families involved in the September massacre, told reporters: "Our community is hurting." He noted that Silva "would fire off his gun, get drunk fire off his gun but he's never pointed] it at people"—until he did, killing three women in a [preventable rampage.
That progression from firing weapons while intoxicated to mass murder represents exactly the behavioral escalation that threat assessment intercepts. But only if systematic protocols exist to identify, assess, and manage the individual before the final, fatal escalation.
Hawaii's Data Crisis Prevents Evidence-Based Solutions
The Hawaii Gun Violence and Violent Crimes Commission identified critical research gaps in 2021: untraceable ghost guns, rising juvenile crime, domestic violence correlations with gun violence, and firearm registration increases exceeding 200% between 2000 and 2023.
Yet the commission has not met since January 2024 and no meetings are scheduled. Efforts to fund a gun violence research office under the Attorney General were opposed by the AG's office itself, which instead supported merging the commission with another data-sharing working group. Neither proposal passed the legislature.
Commissioner Denise Konan, dean of the College of Social Sciences at University of Hawaii Manoa, stated plainly in 2022: "We just don't have the data on it." Without statewide data collection standards, evidence-based violence prevention is impossible.
CrisisWire's behavioral threat assessment framework addresses this gap by implementing standardized assessment instruments, documentation protocols, and case management systems that create the data infrastructure Hawaii lacks. Our approach follows federal threat assessment guidelines that provide consistent, replicable methodology.
Take Action: Waianae Cannot Wait for Another Mass Shooting
Eleven people died in Waianae shootings between January and September 2024. Hiram Silva's three-year escalation from threats to mass murder was fully visible to neighbors, law enforcement, and community members—yet no intervention occurred because no systematic threat assessment protocol existed.
Jose Quisiquirin died from a stray bullet while standing in his own driveway—the second Waianae bystander killed by gang violence in eight months. A 15-year-old boy was shot. Waianae High School entered lockdown on the first day of school.
Reactive policing cannot prevent this violence. Enhanced sentencing cannot prevent this violence. More officers on patrol cannot prevent this violence.
Only behavioral threat assessment—identifying concerning individuals before they reach the attack stage and implementing intervention strategies that disrupt the pathway to violence—can prevent the next Waianae tragedy.
CrisisWire provides BTAM-certified consulting specifically designed for Hawaii's unique challenges. As former Director of Campus Safety at Chaminade University and with 40+ years experience including U.S. Embassy Baghdad operations, founder Warren Pulley brings operational expertise that mainland consultants cannot provide.
Our services include community-based threat assessment team development, multi-agency coordination protocols, youth intervention programs, and the data infrastructure that enables systematic violence prevention.
Contact CrisisWire today to implement the behavioral intelligence systems that could have prevented every Waianae shooting in 2024—and can prevent the violence threatening your community right now.
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