Threat trial opens
for ex-officer

CORRECTION Sunday, June 26, 2005 » Honolulu police officers are issued 9 mm semi-automatic handguns as their service weapon. A Page A5 article Wednesday incorrectly referred to their service weapon as a revolver. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin strives to make its news report fair and accurate. If you have a question or comment about news coverage, call Editor Frank Bridgewater at 529-4791 or email him at corrections@starbulletin.com.

Former Honolulu police officer Soukvisan Phanthadara went looking for his wife, suspecting she cleaned out their bank account, causing a $60 check he had written for their daughter's lunch money to bounce, said defense attorney Keith Shigetomi.

When he found her in the parking garage at Restaurant Row with another man and woman, they began arguing -- he about the money she took and she insisting he was drunk and telling him to go home, Shigetomi said.

Because he wanted her to stop pushing him, Phanthadara shoved her, Shigetomi said. But Phanthadara never threatened her or her boyfriend, either by word or action, or with a gun, he said.

Phanthadara, 34, who had graduated from the Honolulu Police Academy at the time and is no longer a police officer, is on trial in Circuit Judge Richard Pollack's courtroom, charged with two counts of first-degree terroristic threatening and one count of abusing his wife, Keo.

The terroristic threatening charges stem from allegations by Keo Phanthadara's boyfriend that her husband threatened them both with his service revolver during the Nov. 7, 2004, confrontation.

Phanthadara, who turned himself in the following afternoon after his wife called him to say police were looking for him, believed he was wanted for abusing her. He was shocked when he was also arrested for threatening the couple with a gun because he didn't threaten anyone, Shigetomi said.

While Phanthadara carried his service revolver even while off-duty, it was inside his fanny pack, Shigetomi said. Phanthadara didn't even know the man with his wife was her boyfriend until that night, although she had admitted a few months earlier that she had cheated on him.

Deputy Prosecutor Maurice Arrisgado said Phanthadara began screaming, "Is this the guy you left me for?" and pulled out his gun after spotting his wife with another male in the parking garage.

Keo Phanthadara allegedly tried to warn him he would get into trouble and pushed the hand holding the gun away. But her husband shoved her and struck her on the side of her head, Arrisgado said.

First-degree terroristic threatening is punishable by a maximum of five-years imprisonment. The trial continues today.