Kauai man arrested after punch in bar leaves man critically injured
A punch thrown in a Lihue bar left a 30-year-old man in critical condition and led to the arrest of a Koloa man Monday night, a Kauai County spokeswoman said in a news release.
The suspect, 24-year-old Nicholas Char was at the Kalapaki Joe’s sports bar at the Kukui Grove Shopping Center when he began taunting patrons and punching windows Monday night, according to a Kauai County police report. Char was removed from the bar, but re-entered and walked up to a man and punched him in the jaw, causing the victim to fall to the ground, the police report said.
The victim, a Kapaa man, was unresponsive when police, medics and firefighters were called to the scene at about 9:45 p.m. He was flown to the Queen’s Medical Center with life-threatening head injuries and remains at Queen’s in critical condition, according to the news release.
Police arrested Char for first-degree assault. He was charged and released after posting $20,000 bail.
Char is expected to appear in court on Jan. 20.
The case remains under police investigation.
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12 responses to “Kauai man arrested after punch in bar leaves man critically injured”
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Some folks regard fisticuffs with some nostalgia but once again we have an example of a single punch causing severe injury. Assaulting someone with a clenched fist should never be taken lightly.
From what I heard Char doesn’t care if he goes to prison for murder his friends said he told them he’ll knock everybody out in there too.
Tough guy. He missed his calling in the boxing ring then.
Sucker punching someone with no cause is a strong indicator of dangerous
violent tendencies. The court that let this guy out at a low 20K obviously
did not consider the danger to society that this person causes by being free.
Shame on the Hawaii court system! Too lenient and not on top of a dangerous situation as it may affect the public. Disgusting
How can somebody this out of control and this dangerous be out on bail?
Charged and released…how can?
Ditto
Sounds close to attempted murder to me.
Looks like somebody can’t handle the truth or even worse when you can’t handle what is not true.
At his trial, his family will come out and say that this was totally out of character for him, he’s always trying to make people laugh, he’d give you the shirt off his back, blah, blah, blah.
CHAR is a PIG! He will be the puka-bag in prison. Hahahahah!
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Assault may seem like a gross undercharge, but it’s common in this kind of situation for the prosecutor not to seek the gravest charge right away. If, God forbid, the victim dies — that’s when you elevate the charge to manslaughter or Murder 2. That strategy keeps the State from boxing themselves in with a lesser charge.
The bail seems awfully low, but it’s actually pretty high for an assault charge. Again, you don’t want to set the bail unusually high because a good defense lawyer would challenge it. Kaua’i is a small community and this guy will be under the parole officer’s thumb. He won’t be getting off-islamd either, unless he tries paddleboarding to Ni’ihau.