Randall and Carol Kim enjoy a day at the beach in 1986.
They were slain Sunday in their Mililani home.
Photo by Warren Bolster, Special to the Star-Bulletin

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The worst thing people can do is put up more walls between them and their neighbors.

Hawaii mental health and stress specialists hope that is the lesson that will be learned from a neighborhood dispute in Mililani that ended in four deaths Sunday.

"The most important thing for people to do is rally together and re-establish neighborly bonds," said Dr. Claude Chemtob, a clinical psychologist and authority on stress disorders.

Police and witnesses believe disagreements over noisy children and cars blocking parking lots led Michael Lau, 45, to fatally shoot neighbors Randall Kim, 36, Carol Kim, 33, and their friend Terry Nakasone, 33. Lau then killed himself.

"The best protection against something like this happening is to actually reach out more to neighbors, invest more time in knowing them," said Chemtob, who has practiced in Hawaii for 16 years and who did extensive work with victims of Hurricane Iniki, which ravaged Kauai.

"I worry that as the sense of community breaks down, we don't appreciate each other. We can't take care of each other as well. Things come out of the blue without early warnings."

Dr. Robert Hyman, a psychiatrist who has worked with postal and other government employees to prevent stress from turning violent, said the same advice he uses in the workplace can be applied between neighbors: Talk about problems, listen to each other, make changes.

"If your neighbor feels you're just listening and not doing anything, he'll stop talking to you. That's the last thing you want," said Hyman, director of the Stress and Pain Management Clinic of Hawaii at Kuakini Medical Center and a doctor in the state since 1977. "Most important is that you show your neighbor you're willing to change. Most people I know in Hawaii will make changes if they hear from neighbors."

"Each of us has to assess whether we're just thinking about ourselves and families or whether we also are thinking about our neighbors."

Hyman stressed that it's especially important to get people here to talk about problems. "In Hawaii a lot of people have been told you should internalize anger. That's not such a great idea. Eventually you blow up one way or another. What we should do is tell them to talk to their wives, children, neighbors. It's like any other learned behavior."

Hyman praised the Philippine system of taking village problems to elders for mediation and advised more use of Hawaii's neighborhood boards to help resolve disputes.

"It's not enough for boards to just be there, they have to go out to the Mr. Laus of our community and tell them they're willing to help," Hyman said.

Peter Iszard, member relations manager for the Mililani Town Association, said he was hired in July to do just that. Iszard planned to reach out to the community of 11,000 homes with the association's newsletter.

He said the association had not received any complaints from the Lau or Kim families. "It came as an abrupt shock."

Hyman advised against neighbors being on the lookout for signs of stress or trying to analyze one another. "Nine times out of 10 you will be wrong. Everyone in the community will start getting distrustful and paranoid. Bigger walls between houses is exactly what we don't need."