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Honolulu police sergeant’s son sentenced to life for 2022 fatal shooting

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / MAY 1
                                Nainoa Damon is seen in court.

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / MAY 1

Nainoa Damon is seen in court.

Nainoa Damon, the 22-year-old son of a Honolulu police officer, was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole today for second-degree murder in the shooting death of Haaheo Kolona during a 2022 botched robbery.

Circuit Judge Shanlyn Park denied the state’s motion for extended sentencing, which would have meant life without the possibility of parole.

She ordered a minimum sentence of 15 years for the murder charge, to run concurrently with the 20-year sentence for two Class A felony firearms charges, first-degree robbery, 10 years for a Class B felony firearms charge and five years for first-degree terroristic threatening.

He was also ordered to pay $3,900 in restitution to Kolona’s mother.

Blake Kolona, the victim’s father, shouted out after the judge sentenced Damon, “Fifteen years?” he asked her. “I’m not happy with that, I respectfully tell you, judge.”

He alleged the court is corrupt, and that the judge failed to extend the sentence because Damon’s mother is a police sergeant.

On May 14, Damon was found guilty in the 2022 fatal Round Top Drive shooting of Kolona who was 18 years old at the time. Damon, who was 19 at the time of the crime, robbed an entire group of more than a dozen people at gunpoint, demanding they empty their pockets, and trying to pull a gold chain off the neck of Edward Aiden Curti. More than a dozen eyewitnesses correctly identified Damon as the shooter.

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