A lawsuit against the Hawaii Public Housing Authority details claims of assaults on residents of Kalihi Valley Homes allegedly at the hands of security guards working for the state housing agency.
The alleged beatings include one where a security guard grabbed a male by the hair and threw him into a closed door for riding his bike.
The lawsuit claims that the state’s public housing authority was negligent in multiple ways, including allowing security guards to keep their jobs despite the attacks.
“The security guards at Kalihi Valley Homes have a pattern and practice of picking on, taunting and brutally beating the young male residents at Kalihi Valley Homes resulting in the victims’ hospitalization,” attorney Joseph Rosenbaum said in press release. “When these beatings were time and time again brought to the attention of the State of Hawaii Public Housing Authority, either nothing was done to protect the residents or the residents were hyper-scrutinized and retaliatory eviction proceeds were initiated against them.”
The Hawaii Public Housing Authority declined to comment on the case. In an email, planner Dawn Apuna said that the agency has not yet been served and that it would defer any comment to the state attorney general.