SALON

Wednesday, Dec 28, 2011 6:40 PM UTC

Hawaii Man Charged In Bar Assault With Cow Bone

By

Topics: From the Wires,

HONOLULU (AP) — A Hawaii man was charged with four counts of assault after allegedly attacking a group of men with what is believed to be a cow’s thighbone, police on the Big Island said Wednesday.

Officers responded to a report of a brawl outside a Kailua-Kona bar on Christmas Eve and arrived to find four men with injuries from an attack. Bar patrons were holding Gregory Haas, 45, who witnesses told police attacked the men with the bone.

“He did indicate that he did actually find it in pastureland here in the Kona area,” Lt. Gerald Wike said Wednesday. The weapon was recovered at the scene and taken as evidence. Police are sure it’s a bone from a large animal and are trying to determine with certainty that it’s from a cow.

“It’s unusual someone using that as a weapon,” he said. “This is the first that I have experienced an assault taking place with what appears to be an animal bone.”

The attack in the Gold Coast Center parking lot was “unprovoked,” Wike said, adding that Haas appeared to be intoxicated.

One of the victims, 40, was hit in the head and airlifted to a Honolulu hospital in critical condition. He has since been discharged and returned to the Big Island, Wike said. Another man, 25, was treated at Kona Community Hospital for cuts to his head and released. Two others, 65 and 49, received injuries that did not require medical attention.

He was charged with one count of first-degree assault and three counts of second-degree assault.

A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Thursday, according to the Hawaii County prosecuting attorney’s office. Haas could not be reached Wednesday at Hawaii Community Correctional Center, where he is being held in lieu of $55,000 bail.

More Jennifer Sinco Kelleher.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations