by Rob Simpson
A manhunt: a known criminal had jumped parole. Apparently considered armed and dangerous, Ulysses Kim was playing hide-and-seek with the sheriff’s department in a neighbourhood near the Punchbowl Crater in Honolulu. Peter and I were assigned to join the deputies from the State of Hawaii in their search, get the details on Kim’s background, and shoot video of the areas he had been seen.
Our shooting and interviewing duties were done in an hour. The rest of the afternoon we simply sat and waited. We watched deputies and dogs search and sniff for clues. We ran around town chasing a few leads, but they all turned out to be rumours about Kim’s whereabouts. The fugitive never turned up.
Peter and I headed back to the station to put together stories for the five and six p.m. newscasts. At dusk, the deputies postponed their search. As usual, I wrapped up my work, prepped for the next day, and, on this occasion, headed home to get ready for a softball game. Another day, another half dollar.
My evening turned out to be more frustrating than my afternoon. I went an inexcusable oh-for-three in my at-bats. To make matters worse, during my second time at the plate, I seemed to rip a muscle in my lower back. Our team of local writers and advertising men lost.
The next morning, I had a hard time standing up. The back pain, combined with an unexpected head cold, left me temporarily bedridden and angry. Until this point, I hadn’t ever missed a day of work due to injury or sickness. I called in.
“Bren-dude, I’m done,” I stated. “I’m illin’ and I tore my back up last night. Sorry.”
The Kim situation never crossed my mind. Later, I’d hear the remarkable tale of how the day unfolded. I had figuratively, and almost literally, dodged a potential bullet.
In my absence, Peter was hooked up with college intern, Tiffany Spencer. Tiffany had spent the summer attempting to learn as much as possible about the reporting business. August 6, 1992, became the ultimate initiation day.
The Ulysses Kim search had picked up at dawn where it had left off the evening before. Peter began the day alone, sitting in the news van listening to the police scanner, close to their command post. Peter and the cops were positioned about a third of the way up Tantalus, a lush neighbourhood above and behind Punchbowl in Honolulu. Looking from the ocean, Tantalus sits above an area called Makiki. Manoa Valley stretches back below to the right; Pauoa Valley to the left. The Ko’olau Range rises above it all, separating Honolulu from Kailua and the windward side of Oahu. Two roads meet at the top of Tantalus. Tantalus Drive begins at its base near Pauoa to the left; Round Top Drive starts from the Manoa side.
“I’m writing down on a piece of paper where the guy’s gone,” Peter remembers. “He had his breakfast at this little old lady’s, Mrs. Akana. And I got the address because she called it in after he left because she thought he was kind of suspicious. He supposedly spent the night at some chick’s house down at the back of this road where the cop command centre was. The mother had seen him, he had shown ’em the gun, and they called it in. So he’d been spotted all over the place.”
Ninety minutes after Peter arrived on the scene, Brenda drove a news van over and dropped off Tiffany.
“Here’s Tiffany, who’s, like, this intern, right,” Peter explains. “Brenda says [Tiffany] doesn’t have anything to do, she’s gonna do a package [news piece] on whatever you guys come up with. Just sit here and listen, and that’s basically what we did.”
What a team. Peter O’Callaghan and Tiffany Spencer represented complete opposites. Describing Peter as flamboyant was an understatement. He could be loud, he could be obnoxious, and he was almost always a joy to work with. A full-blooded Irishman from Chicago who grew up in the age of psychedelics, Pete enjoyed being the centre of attention. His outgoing and generally irreverent nature made a social occasion out of work, rest, or play. At the same time, he enjoyed his life as a family man, living on the lush windward side of Oahu with his wife and young daughter. Big, bulky, and blond, Peter’s zest for life flickered in his spirited blue eyes.
Tiffany was a relative unknown. Tall, buxom, Mormon, and married: that summed up the newsroom’s general knowledge of this Brigham Young University coed. She made up for her naïvete and lack of experience with a sometimes fiery perseverance.
On this particular assignment, she’d show a “go get ’em” attitude that the normally uninspired news staff lacked.
On Wednesday, we had learned that Kim was carrying a scanner of his own. He knew where most of the police units were located. On Thursday, the police tried to use this knowledge to their advantage.
“They said they were calling off the search,” Tiffany recalls. “They were hoping Ulysses Kim would come out of hiding. But they were not actually calling off the search. We figured that out, so we started going door to door around the neighbourhood asking, ‘Did you see Ulysses Kim? Was he here?’”
The two decided to visit the elderly woman who reported getting a visit from the fugitive during breakfast. On the way down Mrs. Akana’s driveway, the two shared an amazing conversation. The ultimate foreshadowing.
“I’m telling you, I think this was psychic,” Peter recalls. “When we’re walking down there, I go, ‘Now lookit, if anyone gets held hostage, it’s gonna be you because I’m a father.’ And she goes, ‘Oh no, no, it couldn’t be me, my husband would miss me way too much.’ Can you believe that?
“I had really kind of forgotten saying it,” Peter remembered, “but Tiffany reminded me, and I knew exactly what I had said, it was just, like, crystal clear. It’s really weird.”
Mrs. Akana told Peter and Tiffany everything they wanted to hear, only she wouldn’t do it on camera.
It’s relatively common to arrive at a scene and have a witness or participant in a story not want to talk to the cameras. This is especially true in Hawaii because of the traditional Asian values. Visiting Japanese women, or locals of Japanese descent, particularly the older ones, could be most difficult. It’s not their place to speak to a stranger carrying a camera. Some Japanese women visiting the beach will actually scurry and hide when they see someone shooting video.
A reporter can sneak an interview, or they can try to persuade a person to talk. It’s not uncommon to see a reporter begging, depending on the importance and timing of the story. Persuasion is the only option once you lose the element of surprise. If the person won’t budge, then make the best of it. Often after asking once, chit-chatting for a while, and then asking again, an interviewer will get the go-ahead.
In Mrs. Akana’s case, she wasn’t budging. Her husband had died recently, so she didn’t have his advice or support. Luckily for Tiffany and Peter, she had no problem with telling the whole story off-camera. At least they’d get every detail.
“She proceeded to tell me the entire incident — how he came in, he didn’t threaten her, he just asked her if he could use the phone,” Tiffany remembers. “Then she showed us how he left her home through the backyard and went into the valley, because it was lush and thick and it was a great place for him to hide.”
The twosome decided to move on, to find other locations in the area to check for leads. After thanking Mrs. Akana and heading up the driveway with Tiffany, Peter spotted the crew from Channel 4. Reporter Keoki Kerr and photographer Bob Guanzon were making their way toward Akana’s house.
“Keoki and Bob were headed down to the house, so we decided to head right back down with them,” Tiffany says.
Rarely does a reporter let a rival determine his or her next move, especially if it means backtracking. In this case, however, Peter and Tiffany had some unfinished business they could handle. Tiffany could do an on-camera stand-up at the scene. Plus, the news biz was pretty casual in Aloha-land, and the group could catch up and “talk story.”
Their decision to backtrack was monumental.
Tiffany and Peter decided to set up near the bushes
at the rear edge of the yard. The valley dropped
off dramatically just behind the thick brush. Approximately twenty-five feet separated the house from the edge of the valley. A couple of steps led up to a small porch and back door on the rear of the home.
“We were all in the backyard. We all heard a rustling,” Tiffany describes, “and Ulysses Kim just popped up out of the bushes. It looked like he just hopped up out of nowhere. He just stood there in a daze, and it was obvious he was on something. He just kind of . . . nobody said anything, then he looked at us and asked if we were with the news. We said yes.”
For Peter, the next thirty minutes would unravel in slow motion.
“Now [Mrs. Akana] is on the back porch,” Peter starts. “It’s Keoki, Tiffany, Bob, and myself, right? I’m talking to the lady on the [porch], and here comes the guy, walking up the steep cliff. We couldn’t believe it. He’s got a coat over his [right] hand here, and he had a scanner in his other hand. I start picking up the camera, I figure he’s going to give himself up. I figure he’s tired and realizes they’re gonna kill him and all this other stuff.
“He goes, ‘No no, we’ll have none of that.’ He’s got this dopey look on his face and waves, ‘Put the camera back down.’ Then I look at Bob and I go, ‘That’s the guy?’ and he goes, ‘Yeah, that’s the guy.’
“Mrs. Akana is standing right there on the back porch of her place there, and he’s looking at her going, ‘Uuuuuuuhhhhhh.’ So I turn and start to push her into her house, and I’m, like, ‘Go hide, go hide, go anywhere to hide.’ He walks right up to [Tiffany and Keoki], and I’m with this lady going, ‘Hey, you should get out of here.’ I push her in her house.”
For Tiffany, the next few moments were a blur.
“The next thing I remember,” she recalls, “I turned around, and Ulysses Kim has the gun to Peter’s back, and he’s ordering him into the house. Peter yells back and says, ‘Get outta here!’”
“I can’t figure out why he chose me, that’s what really blows me away,” Peter wonders aloud. “Because Keoki Kerr, obviously on television . . . probably because I moved, or probably because I had put the camera up in the beginning.
“Anyway, I push this woman into the house and turn around to look at what’s going on, and he was right there. The jacket was down and he had a shotgun and he dug it right into my side. He just came straight across . . . he ran across the yard and came right up behind me. I had my back turned for a second; when I turned back around there he was.
“I’m, like, ‘Fuck, oh no, no, no, you’ve got to be mistaken, I can’t . . . I can’t do anything.’ He says, ‘No, shut up, you’re going to take me outta here. You’re gonna get me out of this valley.’ I’m, like, ‘I can’t get you out of this valley, I can’t do anything, I da . . . da . . . da . . . ahhhh . . . whatever.’ He goes, ‘Shut the fuck up, or I’m gonna blow your head off.’”
Mrs. Akana watched this exchange and then retreated into a bedroom. Kim backed Peter into the house. Tiffany ran and hid around the side of the house with Keoki and called 911 on her cell phone (actually, KGMB’s cell phone; personal cell phones were uncommon at this point). Channel 4 photographer Guanzon dropped his equipment, ran around the side of the house, quickly scaled a ten-foot stone wall, and ran to get police.
Peter’s life was in the hands of a stoned fugitive. We learned later that Kim was apparently on an “ice” (crystal methamphetamine) buzz that lasted for more than 140 hours.
Kim led Peter through the house, had him unlock the front door, and began backing him up an outdoor stairway. By now the police radios were jamming with information on the hostage situation.
“He had the gun in my gut and wants me to walk him up these stairs and up to where there are cops everywhere,” recalls Peter. “These cops — who had been acting like they were all going away — all the SWAT guys, sixty of them coming down from the top, sixty of them coming up from the bottom, all with their SWAT jackets on and their shotguns and all this shit. I mean, it’s like cops everywhere. I mean everywhere.
“He’s facing me, walking me up the stairs backwards, and he goes, ‘Put the camera down.’ So I put the camera down. He turns me around and puts the gun up my back and marches me up there. He walks me up to Channel 4’s car and says, ‘Don’t look at those cops, just walk over to this news car, get in, and drive away.’ I’m trying to explain to him it’s Channel 4’s news car. I don’t have the keys, I can’t drive it, I don’t have them. He goes, ‘Try the doors!’ He’s getting really . . . he’s obviously out of his mind.’”
Peter’s own news van was parked a quarter-mile away. Fortunate, because Kim would have no opportunity to ride off with Peter; unfortunate, because this development left Kim angry, with very few alternatives.
Whether Peter lived or died would be determined in the next few moments.
Peter continued to try all of the doors while Kim yelled warnings to police.
“He’s yelling at them, ‘Get the keys to this car! Get the keys to this fucking car or I’m going to waste this haole!’” The two stayed close together near the car as Kim continued to yell threats for another minute.
“Finally he says, ‘Kneel down.’ And I’m, like, ‘Ahh, c’mon man, I didn’t do anything to you.’ He goes, ‘Kneel down!’” Peter went to his knees as Kim centred the shotgun on his back.
“He’s standing there, yelling, ‘You know, I’m fucking serious, I’m gonna kill this haole motherfucker if you don’t get the keys to this car!’ Then he tells me to lie down on my face.”
At this point, Peter believed his life was over.
“I wasn’t really into going down on my face. He pushes me down and has the gun right here, pushed up against the back of my head. The back of my head.
“He goes, ‘If you fuckers think you can take me down, take your best shot because I’m gonna waste this guy or get out of this valley.’”
The sound of a gunshot echoed.
“Some cop . . . shot him. Shot him in the neck.”
Peter heard the shot, panicked briefly, but then saw the shotgun drop. It fell ten inches from his face and bounced. It was pointed directly at his head.
Peter was almost killed by a fugitive and then almost shot by accident. That’s when adrenaline took over.
“The gun is there and all I’m thinking about is the gun. I rolled over and grabbed the gun in one motion. I’m standing there over the guy, going, ‘You fucker, how do you like this, you fucking . . . ’ If you listen to the [news] tape, I’m just beside myself.”
Photographers from the two other local TV news stations had arrived in time to shoot a portion of the crisis. Tiffany and Keoki heard the shot and ran up the hill. The police converged on Peter.
“They’re all yelling at once, ‘Put the gun down, put the gun down!’ I’m just gone, you know what I’m saying. I’m not thinking of anything except I’m gonna get this guy.
“Then this one cop goes, ‘C’mon, please put the gun down, it’s hot out here . . . c’mon, let’s just all go home, put the gun down.’ I mean, just like that. I mean, everyone else is yelling at the top of their voices . . . some cop is saying . . . treating me like . . . please put the gun down, ha, ha, ha.
“This is a time when my daughter is, like, two years old, and it’s weird, what’s going through my head, ‘Well, he did say please.’ So I dropped the gun, ran, and got the camera, and started shooting.”
Peter thought Kim was dead. He was bleeding from the neck and lying motionless on his stomach.
“It was really ugly,” Peter continues. “I’m shooting this whole thing and the cops are telling me to get out of there. Cops are moving us back, literally a guy with a dog is pushing me with his hands to back away from there. So I’m like, ‘Fine, let’s get the hell out of here, I’ve had it with this.’”
Peter and Tiffany prepared to leave but couldn’t. The police realized they needed to detain Peter for questioning. At the same time, KGMB ph
otographer Terry Hunter arrived.
“I hiked up to a side street where I was surprised to see a SWAT team and a huge bus,” Terry describes. “Lots of cops, I mean, it was an army of law enforcement people up there. And Peter was there. I was delighted to see he was okay, and he told me what happened. Then he tried to give me the tape from his camera.”
That’s when the hostage drama became a first-amendment crisis. Peter had rolled tape and recorded video on his camera before being taken hostage and then again right after dropping the gun. He knew he would be tied up with questioning for a while, so he handed Terry the tape.
“Immediately, six HPD guys are on me, telling me I can’t take the tape because it’s evidence. I told them it was our tape and we needed to have it, that we’d be happy to make a copy. It was late in the afternoon, and we needed to get it on the newscast.
“They would have none of it,” Terry adds. “They actually grabbed me and took the tape from me. They said it was evidence.”
Terry wasn’t about to overwhelm a cop, let alone a herd of them. In his midforties, standing about five-foot-nine and slight, Terry’s a former English professor turned movie critic, reminiscent of a protestant Woody Allen.
“I realized then that if I had any hope of getting that tape, I had to be super nice. So I changed my tone and said, ‘Look, is there some way we can get a copy?’”
“The guy in charge of the SWAT team said it was okay to turn over the tape,” Peter points out. “He wanted to make sure I hadn’t rolled the whole time [while captive], which I hadn’t. I wish I had but I was unable to. The camera I used that day was too noisy turning on and off and Kim would have heard it clicking. It was the cop in charge of the scene by the command centre who saw me give the tape to Terry and took it out of his pocket.”
Terry’s point of contention was that Channel 2 and Channel 4 had been rolling and police weren’t confiscating those tapes. Why should Channel 9 give up its copy?
“Finally they agreed,” says Terry. “A cop and I went with the tape to the station. We made a dub of the tape, they gave the copy to us and took the original. Later on, we filed complaints and all that with the police department but it didn’t do any good. They had basically done something illegal and they got away with it, as they tend to do in situations like that.”