KEALEKEKUA — Two very different versions of how an off-duty police officer came to injure his 72-year-old upstairs neighbor at the Kalanikai condominium complex off Kuakini Highway the night of Jan. 22 were presented during a preliminary hearing Thursday.
KEALEKEKUA — Two very different versions of how an off-duty police officer came to injure his 72-year-old upstairs neighbor at the Kalanikai condominium complex off Kuakini Highway the night of Jan. 22 were presented during a preliminary hearing Thursday.
Jami Harper, 39, of Kailua-Kona is charged with second-degree assault and appeared before Kona District Judge Margaret Masunaga.
In the end, Masunaga found there was probable cause to continue the case in Kona Circuit Court. The crux of the conflicting stories was who acted as the initial aggressor when the two met on the third floor of their complex at about 11 p.m. that night.
The victim testified he was on his cellphone with his friend when he heard yelling and pounding on his screen door. Still talking to his friend, he said he went to the door to find out what was going on.
The victim said he opened the inner door to see a man he didn’t recognize, later identified as Harper, shouting at him from the other side of the screen door.
He wasn’t able to understand what the man was saying, so he opened the screen door to see and hear better, the victim said. He didn’t feel threatened, he told Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kate Deleon.
Harper agreed that he went to the victim’s door, according to statements to police. But here the first major divergence in the stories starts.
The victim said he had his right hand on the doorway when he was grabbed and dragged out.
“He pulled me down and I went face-first into the concrete,” he said.
But Harper told investigators the victim aggressively reached his right hand outward, as if to grab a shirt collar.
In response, Harper, who lived on the second floor below the victim, grabbed the man and pulled him to the ground in an “arm bar,” a move used by police where a person’s arm is locked behind them.
The victim said he was held in that position for a while without struggling.
“I was afraid of causing more mayhem if I moved,” he said, adding he could feel blood on his face and when he finally asked to sit up, Harper released him.
Harper called for police and medics. After officers arrived, Sgt. Akira Edmoundson, who also testified during the hearing, talked to Harper, who said he’d gone upstairs in response to loud noises.
When he was at the door he identified himself as a police officer, Harper told Edmoundson, which the victim denied.
The victim suffered a broken nose, a cut above his right eye that needed six stitches, bruising to his right eye and bruising to his arm.
Harper suffered an abrasion on his right forearm.
Another point of disagreement was how much the victim was drinking. He testified he had two or three gin and tonics, whereas Detective Jeremy Lewis said the victim’s initial statement was four to five drinks. Lewis added that the victim still smelled like alcohol when he interviewed him, more than five hours after the incident.
The exact nature of Harper’s medical condition, which led to his hospitalization in Hilo for four days, was not explored during the hearing. He’d checked into the hospital that night after the altercation.
“This was at best confusion,” defense attorney Michael Schlueter said in arguing the prosecution failed to meet its burden of proof that Harper was intentinally, knowingly or recklessly causing an injury.
Another hearing is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Thursday, March 17, before Judge Ronald Ibarra.
Email Graham Milldrum at gmilldrum@westhawaiitoday.com.