The 42-year-old man who shot and killed the neighbor who rammed his house and shot and killed three women at the home on Waianae Valley Road will not be charged in the incident.
“This case was conferred with the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney and on Wednesday, September 18, 2024, it was declined due to issues related to self-defense and defense of others,” read an update to a Honolulu Police Department highlight.
Hiram James Silva Sr. was fatally shot with a handgun Aug. 31 after he used a front-loader carrying fuel drums to push cars into the side of his neighbor’s home, then shot and killed three women who were visiting the home for a party.
Rishard Kanaka Keamo-Carnate, a licensed firearm owner, was arrested on suspicion of murder in the second degree at 12:15 a.m. Sept. 1 and released pending investigation at 7:55 that night.
Silva shot and killed Cherell Keamo, 36, Courtney Raymond-Arakaki, 34, and Jessyca Amasiu, 29. Two other people, a 52-year-old woman and a 31-year-old man, were critically wounded in the shooting and successfully underwent surgery Sept. 1.
Keamo-Carnate lived in the home Silva attacked with his wife, children and mother-in-law.
His attorney alleged that in 2021 and 2022 Silva threatened to shoot members of the the Keamo family.
The Keamo and Silva families were at odds on the night of Aug. 31 over a loud party and speeding cars at the nonpermitted commercial venue that Silva operated on his 19-acre property at 85-1383-C Waianae Valley Road.
The families’ fight over Silva’s party structure dated back at least three years.
On Mach. 23, 2021, amid the COVID-19 lockdown, Rishard’s wife, Alison Keamo-Carnate, wrote a letter to Honolulu City Council member Andria Tupola, Rep. Cedric Gates, Rep. Staceylynn Eli, Sen. Maile Shimabukuro and Sen. Kurt Fevella.
She alleged violations of COVID -19 gathering rules and said a drunk driver leaving a concert on Silva’s property rammed head-on into her vehicle as she drove up the single-lane road she shares with Silva’s property.
“The collision resulted in the driver attempting to flee, hitting another vehicle, a fight breaking out as the result of the second accident, hundreds of cars lined up revving their engines at a dead stop with no way out because the accident (is) on our one way lane,” Alison Keamo-Carnate wrote to state and county lawmakers, alleging police inaction at the scene.
“…We attempted to make peace with our neighbors, the Silvas. We hoped to plan for a safer future, but they declined to come to our home to discuss what happened, after over 20 plus years of being neighbors,” she wrote, noting that similar-sized events caused similar problems at least “four or five times before.”
Honolulu Police Chief Arthur “Joe” Logan told the Rick Hamada radio show during his “Ask the Chief” segment Sept. 9 that “… neighbors with neighbors, those things are very hard and difficult.”
Logan said that police did go to the Silva property in 2021 to arrest Silva after terroristic threatening complaints were made against him by people alleging Silva threatened to shoot them.
“When they went to go arrest Mr. Silva … he was behind a chain link fence that was locked and he was not identifying himself as who he was, he was using some other name. If the policeman doesn’t know him by sight … you just don’t grab people off the street … we need positive identification. Just because the detective says ‘arrest him’ doesn’t mean you walk up to someone, say ‘I think you are so and so’ and take them down. That’s not how that works,” said Logan, noting it would have been a violation of Silva’s Fourth Amendment rights.
“At that particular time, with the way things were evolving, I understand why the officers couldn’t make the arrest. We have laws that we need to follow … I wish we had some way of making positive (identification) that day.”
