Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger

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Letting killers out of hospital is just crazy

THIS JUST IN from the "Are You Freakin' Kidding Me?!" file: Just days after a psychiatrist resigned from the state mental hospital because of increasing physical attacks on patients and staff, a killer with a history of attacks at the same hospital is being released from the mental hospital.

All together now: ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME?!

Curtis Kealoha, 59, who spent only 13 years in the mental hospital after being acquitted of murder by reason of insanity in the slaughter of his girlfriend, has been deemed "fit" by doctors for release into a group home on Oahu. I don't know what the medical or psychiatric definition of "fit" is, but apparently you can attack and threaten the staff and patients of the mental hospital and still be considered safe for release into the community.

Circuit Judge Glen Hara, who approved Kealoha's release, must be a gambling man. He's gambling that this violent, unstable killer, who could not even be controlled by professionals in the state mental hospital, will not hurt anyone when he is released to a low-security "group home." Thanks for watching our backs, your honor.

We are supposed to be comforted by the alleged fact that Kealoha will be "monitored" at his new group home. Monitored? He was being "monitored" in the state hospital, which supposedly has a crack security staff. But even there he assaulted or threatened people at least eight times. If the staff of the mental hospital couldn't control this guy, what chance do the group home "monitors" have?

AND IT'S CLEAR that the staff of the mental hospital is not safe from violent inmates. That's why Dr. Karen Ritchie just called it quits as a hospital psychiatrist, and why a nurse remains on leave after being assaulted by a patient. Upon decamping from the hospital, Ritchie said, "I don't believe it's a safe environment." And the reason it wasn't safe was because of killers like Kealoha who attacked the hospital staff. And now Kealoha is let go? ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME?!

I don't know why judges are so willing to put the public at large at risk just because a (formerly) mentally insane killer is feeling better. I'm glad he's feeling better. But he still killed someone, and he still should be locked up, not "monitored." Judges should stop gambling that people with a history of mental instability, violence and killing are not going to hurt anyone again. Why risk it? How about giving the public the benefit of the doubt for a change?

And while we're at it, let's change the way we treat mentally ill killers. Why does it have to be a choice between prison and a low-security mental hospital? Why can't there be a state hospital for violent mentally ill people INSIDE the prison walls? If we aren't willing to protect nurses, doctors and the public from violent offenders, all I can say is, ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME?!