Changing Hawaii

By Diane Yukihiro Chang

Monday, December 2, 1996

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Blame game hits new low
with Maili crash

WHILE the rest of us were gorging on turkey and trimmings last Thursday, members of the Ceno family of Maili were surveying the injuries and damage from a crazy car crash. About 10 p.m. the night before, a speeding red Acura skidded into Chantelle Ceno's enclosed porch, and landed atop her boyfriend, Matthew Pinero, and their 2-year-old daughter, Briana.

What followed next must have seemed like a surreal blur: The cries of agony and anger. The driver of the car, a 22-year-old Nanakuli man, reportedly fleeing in terror. Chantelle's brother and other men eventually catching him. Police figuring out that the suspect had held his ex-girlfriend against her will for 45 minutes before chasing her and a male driver, when the accident occurred.

What a mess. But it gets even more bizarre from there. After the suspect was arrested and then released for kidnapping, reckless endangerment and traffic violations, his family drove back to the Ceno home on Friday to "burn rubber" and yell out that the whole fiasco was "not the suspect's fault."

It wasn't? All together now: Then whose fault was it?

Here it comes, gang, those familiar big puppy-dog eyes, incredulous expression of astonishment and self-righteous denial from a seemingly cut-and-dry culprit who says, "Hey, don't look at moi!"

OK, let's give this guy the benefit of the doubt. If not him, then who else could possibly be at fault for his vehicle plowing into an abode and resting atop two human beings?

Maybe we should blame:

The Acura manufacturer for producing an unsafe vehicle. After all, in an ideal world, a car should not so easily skid across an intersection and end up in somebody's property, no matter how fast the wheels are spinning, right?

The house being situated too close to the road. Obviously, the homeowner did not build the structure far enough back from the street to avoid a careening car. Also, Pinero shouldn't have been walking in with the baby at that particular moment in time.

The girlfriend who broke up with the guy. Certainly, most to blame MUST be the hard-hearted Hannah who broke up with the suspect. She sufficiently peeved him enough to, first, hold her against her will when she came to collect her stuff. And then she had the audacity to drive off with another guy. How dare she! If this wicked wahine hadn't shattered his heart, then the suspect wouldn't have had to follow her in a high-speed chase, see? She's the one to blame!

AREN'T you just a little tired of hearing this opala? This is the same deranged mentality that wife beaters use to justify their actions. "Why (SLAP) do you make me (PUNCH) do this to you (KICK)?!"

The answer is nobody makes anybody do anything to anyone else. It's a matter of choice, it's a question of self-control. And I, for one, am sick of guilty parties doling out the blame so generously.

While the rest of us are thinking joyous thoughts about Christmas, members of the Ceno family are fretting over the recoveries of little Briana and Matthew Pinero, who is in especially critical condition.

Therefore, as we go about our shopping and celebrating this yuletide season, let's remember this crazy Maili case, including the protestations of innocence by the clan of the guilty party. If they want to believe that their boy is innocent, by all means, they should go ahead.

But Santa knows.