In-Stock
GranIte
&
QUartZ
Pre-Fab PanelS
ALLNATURAL
STONE
FABRICATION
Showroom&
FabricationFacility
74-555Honokohau St., bldg a, bay 4
(aboveHonokohauHarbor)
(808) 324-0410
HoUrS:
Monday - Friday
8
am
- 4
pm
or by appointment
I
N
C
On the morning of
Sunday, October 4th, 2015,
PATH (People’s Advocacy for Trails
Hawaii), will be holding the 29th Annual PATH 5k/10k and Keiki Dash Community
Race as part of the Kickoff for Ironman Week.
We wish to inform you that from 7:15 am to 9:15 am the Southbound (makai lane)
of
Alii Drive from Hualalai Road
to Pahoehoe Beach Park
will
be closed to vehicle traffic.
The
Northbound lane will remain open.
Motorists are encouraged to use
Kuakini Hwy to travel south during
this temporary road closure. We
hope this will not inconvenience
you, and we will make every effort
to facilitate safe passage for any
vehicles using Alii Drive during this
time. Special Duty Police Officers
will be controlling traffic and volunteer
course guides wearing reflective
vests will also be stationed along the
areas of Alii Drive that will be affected.
We appreciate your understanding
and patience.
Come join all the runners
and walkers by signing up
at PathHawaii.org or calling
326-PATH, that’s 326-PATH!
N
E
W
S
Pacific Ocean
Alii Drive
Kuakini Hwy.
Hualalai Rd.
Nani Kailua Dr.
Queen Kaahumanu Hwy.
Lunapule Rd.
Casa de Emdeko
Hale Halawai
ROAD CLOSURE
Professional golf lessons
BEGINNERS & AVERAGE TO ADVANCED PLAYERS
Located in the Old Industrial — Corner of Alapa & Eho St • 74-5616 Alapa
333-5071
“Absolutely the Quickest Way
to Improve Your Game”
Receive a FREE video of your lesson
to review as often as you choose.
OCTOBER SPECIAL
2-for-1 Lesson Special
New Clients Only
RAILINGS
Custom Railing Systems-Aluminum-Stainless-Glass & Cable
Design-Materials-Installation Fencing & Custom Gates
Bob Tremain
Licensed C-25912
73-4272 Hulikoa Dr.
Kailua-Kona, HI 96740
Ph. (808) 325-6105
Cell: 808-938-9526
3A
WEST HAWAII TODAY | SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2015
US won’t cooperate
with Russian military
campaign in Syria
WASHINGTON—President
Barack Obama is rejecting
Russia’s military campaign in
Syria, saying it fails to dis-
tinguish between terrorist
groups and moderate rebel
forces with a legitimate inter-
est in a negotiated end to the
civil war.
The
president
called
Russia’s military involve-
ment, including airstrikes that
began this week, a self-de-
feating exercise that will move
the Syrian conflict further
from a solution.
Obama
said
Russian
President Vladimir Putin has
not attracted international
support for his approach in
Syria, which is a longstand-
ing Russian ally. He said only
Iran and Syrian President
Bashar Assad are on Putin’s
side, while the U.S. is leading a
60-nation international coali-
tion against the Islamic State
in Syria and Iraq.
Vatican confirms
pope met with gay
former student and
his partner in new
twist to Davis affair
VATICAN CITY — The
Vatican turned the tables on
the Kim Davis affair Friday:
Not only did it distance Pope
Francis from her claims that
he endorsed her stand on
same-sex marriage, it said the
only “real audience” Francis
had in Washington was with
a small group that included a
gay couple.
The revelations, doled out
during the course of the day,
put a new twist on Francis’
encounter with Davis after
she and her lawyers insisted
that her invitation to meet the
pope on Sept. 24 amounted
to an affirmation of her cause.
The Davis case has sharply
divided the United States, and
news of Francis’ meeting with
the Kentucky clerk, who went
to jail after refusing to issue
same-sex marriage licenses,
had upended his six-day U.S.
tour. During the visit, Francis
had tried to steer clear of
such hot-button issues, only
to see the Davis affair domi-
nate the post-trip news cycle.
The Vatican spokesman,
the Rev. Federico Lombardi,
sought to give the Vatican’s
take of events in a statement
early Friday, saying Francis
had met with “several dozen”
people at the Vatican’s
embassy before leaving
Washington for New York.
Davis was among them
and had a “brief meeting,”
he said. Lombardi said such
meetings are common during
papal trips and are due to the
pope’s “kindness and avail-
ability.”
France tells Putin that
Russia must confine
airstrikes in Syria to
Islamic State targets
PARIS — With Russian
warplanes bombing Syria
for a third day, French
President Francois Holland
told President Vladimir Putin
on Friday that Moscow’s air-
strikes must be confined to
attacking Islamic State mili-
tants, not other rebels oppos-
ing the Damascus govern-
ment.
Hollande used a meet-
ing on Ukraine to address
Western
concerns
that
Russia’s airstrikes would
serve to strengthen Syrian
President Bashar Assad by
targeting rebels — perhaps
including some aligned with
the U.S. — rather than hitting
IS fighters it has promised to
attack.
Allies in a U.S.-led coalition
that is conducting its own air
campaign in Syria called on
Russia to cease attacks on
the Syrian opposition and to
focus on fighting the Islamic
State group. A joint state-
ment by France, Turkey, the
U.S. Germany, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia and Britain expressed
concern that Russia’s actions
will “only fuel more extrem-
ism and radicalization.”
Hollande said he told Putin
that only one of Russia’s
strikes in three days hit at
the Islamic State, also known
as ISIL, ISIS and Daesh. The
other strikes, Hollande added,
were on areas controlled by
the opposition.
By wire sources
in brief
ONLINE AND OFF
In the real world, Chris
Harper-Mercer cut the figure
of a quiet young man who kept
people at bay with his earbuds
and struggled to speak when
neighbors asked him how he
was doing. He flunked out of
the Army in less than five weeks,
had few if any friends and still
lived with his mom at age 26.
On several websites that
appeared to be linked to Harper-
Mercer, he put up a more
robust front. A Myspace.com
page included pictures of him
with a rifle and photos of Irish
Republican Army fighters with
assault weapons and balaclavas,
and the caption: “Looking cool
defending their country.” On a
dating website, he wrote that he
weightlifted and enjoyed “kill-
ing zombies.”
The accounts on those sites
were linked to an email address
associated with Harper-Mercer.
Nothing in those online pro-
files suggested the suffocating
hate or alienation that might
drive someone to put on body
armor, grab six guns and extra
ammunition, and open fire on
college students trapped in a
classroom, killing nine.
He liked romantic comedies,
was looking to date a “geek,
nerd, intellectual, punk, intro-
vert, loner, lover,” and was slated
to be a production assistant in
the college theater production
of the comic play, “Blithe Spirit.”
But two law enforcement
sources say they found evidence
that he had white supremacist,
anti-government and anti-re-
ligious leanings, and that he
left a “hate-filled” note. The
sheriff said he was enrolled
in the class he targeted at
Umpqua Community College in
Roseburg, Ore. Witnesses have
said he asked students if they
were Christian, and those who
said yes were killed, while oth-
ers were shot in the legs.
Harper-Mercer long strug-
gled with mental health issues,
law enforcement sources said.
The allegations add to a
messy and mystifying portrait
emerging of Harper-Mercer,
who, despite his allegedly white
supremacist leanings, was
mixed-race and lived with a
hyper-protective black mother
who appeared to be his only true
companion.
On a website called Kickass
Torrents, a person who used the
email associated with Harper-
Mercer commented about a
television news reporter and
cameraman in Virginia shot by
a disgruntled ex-employee, as
he took video.
“I have noticed that so many
people like him are all alone and
unknown, yet when they spill
a little blood, the whole world
knows who they are. … His face
splashed across every screen, his
name across the lips of every
person on the planet, all in the
course of one day. Seems the
more people you kill, the more
you’re in the limelight.”
His last upload on the site,
earlier this week, was a docu-
mentary about the Sandy Hook
Elementary School massacre in
2012, which left 20 students
and six staff members dead.
Harper-Mercer lived most of
his life in the Los Angeles area,
with his mother, Laurel Harper.
Neighbors at the apartment
complex in Torrance where they
lived beforemoving to Oregon in
2013 said he rode his red beach
cruiser around and wore green
military-style pants tucked into
black combat boots.
Reina Webb, 19, recalls how
closely his mother would keep
an eye on him, which to her,
“was kind of weird, because he
seemed like a grown man.”
She remembers how his mom
had to calm him the day he
found that someone had slashed
the tires on his bike.
“He had a fit almost,” Webb
said. “Almost like a tantrum, like
a kid. … He was upset, crying
and doing all that stuff because
of the tires on his bike.”
Other times, neighbors could
hear him in their apartment
yelling at his mom as she tried
to calm him down. “He would
get mad if things weren’t his
way,” Webb said. “But she always
had him in control.”
Although she never inter-
acted with Harper-Mercer, she
remembers his mom as a “real-
ly nice lady.” “She’d always talk
to everybody, say hello and be
super nice and always try and
watch her son,” Webb said. “She
always tried to take care of him.”
Harper, a nurse, wrote on a
Yahoo forum that her son had
Asperger’s syndrome, which
can severely limit social devel-
opment and spark emotional
meltdowns, but is not associat-
ed with predatory behavior.
“My son has Asperger’s,” she
wrote in one post nine years ago,
under the username TweetyBird.
“He’s no babbling idiot nor is his
life worthless. He’s very intelli-
gent and is working on a career
in filmmaking.”
In a comment three years ago,
she offered advice to a parent
with a son diagnosed with the
developmental disorder.
“Now, every person is dif-
ferent and what is true about
one autistic person may not
be true about another but if
it’s any comfort to you, if your
son’s degree isn’t too severe, he
should improve over time. I was
in your shoes and now my son’s
in college.”
In November 2008, Harper-
Mercer enlisted in the Army,
but flunked basic training and
was discharged the next month
“for failing to meet the mini-
mum administrative standards,”
according to Army records.
Military officials did not provide
further details.
He attended El Camino
College in Torrance from 2010
to 2012, but it is not clear
whether he got a degree.
In 2011, he signed up on
the website Mashable, using
a Facebook account that is
now shut down. According to
Mashable, his Facebook profile
included “a reference to Nazi
Germany” and had a quota-
tion: “When all the pleasures
of the world have diluted, the
only thing left that is pure is
power.”
But his dating profile on the
website Spiritual Passions — for
spiritual people of all religions
and belief systems — was fairly
benign. The information on the
website could not be conclusive-
ly verified, although it includes a
photo of Harper-Mercer.
He said he liked all types of
movies from sci-fi to comedy.
He described himself as “shy at
first, but warm up quickly, bet-
ter in small groups,” a conserva-
tive Republican whose hobbies
were “Internet, killing zombies,
movies, music, reading.”
He said he was seeking
any type of connection with a
white or mixed-race woman:
“romance, soulmate, conversa-
tion, miss right now, the yin to
my yang, dating, penpal, friends
only, relationship, miss right.”
He did not want anyone who
was religious, “but spiritual,
pagan, Wiccan.”
BY RICHARDWINTON, BRITTNY
MEJIAAND JOE MOZINGO
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A MYSTIFYING PORTRAIT OF THE OREGON COLLEGE GUNMAN EMERGES
The photos of three of the victims of the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College are
displayed at a news conference, Friday, in Roseburg, Ore. In the photos, from left, are Quinn
Cooper, 18, Lucas Eibel, 18, center, and Jason Johnson, 33.
RICH PEDRONCELLI/
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
