A man accused of attempted murder and second-degree assault in connection with Friday night’s stabbing incident in Hanalei’s Ching Young Village appeared at his preliminary hearing yesterday.

Aerial Star, 23, known by his nickname “Oki,” looked on as two of those who received injuries in the incident and a pair of Kaua‘i police officers were questioned by Prosecuting Attorney Craig De Costa.

Lauren Criswell, 24, of Hanalei, testified that she had dated Star until roughly three months ago and obtained his iPod as collateral for a payment made on the truck he now drives.

On Friday at about 9 p.m., Star approached Criswell while she sat on a bench near the dumpsters in Ching Young Village, and asked for his iPod. According to Criswell, when it wasn’t given to him, Star reacted angrily and pushed Ta-Vina Butac, a close friend of Criswell’s.

“I reacted like she’s my sister and I threw a punch,” said Criswell, who claimed the swing struck Star “in the face.”

Patrick Coan was pricing products in the stock room above a business, The Back Door, and heard “excessive screaming and profanity.” He recognized Butac’s voice as his girlfriend’s, and went downstairs to diffuse the situation.

According to Coan, he and Butac, 31, of Kapa’a, encouraged Star, an “acquaintance but not a friend,” to leave the area. Star responded by telling Coan, “Don’t touch me,” before punching him two to four times.

The well-built Coan then pushed the much slighter Star to the ground and punched him, by his own account, “in the back of the head.” Butac came over to “help subdue (Star)” when a bystander screamed, “He’s got a knife. Get away.”

Coan said that he saw a “three- to four-inch blade on a folding knife with a matte black finish” in Star’s hand pressed to Butac’s midsection. Coan attempted to wrestle the weapon away from Star, and only in the aftermath did he realize that his arm had been “opened up inside the left elbow” and that his “whole body was covered in blood.”

A bystander told Coan that he had also been “hit in the back,” and another offered his belt to be used as a tourniquet for the freely bleeding arm. Coan said that his back felt “hot and wet” and that he sat down when he began to feel light-headed.

Criswell had stayed near the altercation until it became apparent that Star had a weapon, she said. At that point, she rushed in to try to separate Butac from the fighting men, and when the four became disentangled, Star flailed his arms and “accidentally” cut Criswell.

“Unfortunately, I was in the wrong place,” she said.

Read more …

(Source: Kauai Garden Island News)