What happened to the outrage?

A military couple gets injured in a parking lot argument in Waikele and the opinion boards light up.

A guy just off the plane from the Mainland is killed at a beach park and it's very quiet out there. Too quiet. The people who were jumping up and down about how locals hate haoles didn't have much to say about how a law school student's life was taken by a fast fist in the dark parking lot of a Leeward beach.

A young man full of promise dies and the community chorus doesn't have much to say about it. Why?

Is it because most people wouldn't do what Christopher Reuther did, venturing out to Nanakuli after dark and provoking the wrath of thugs by stepping onto their turf? Getting beat up in a shopping complex parking lot in broad daylight, now that's horrifying — you're supposed to be safe outside Baskin Robbins and Genki Sushi.

Getting assaulted at a Leeward beach after dark? Well, what were you thinking? That area has been all but ceded to thugs and thuggery in the collective consciousness. In other cities, you don't go to certain neighborhoods, certain alleys, certain lonely train stations after dark. In Hawai'i, the dangerous place to be after dark is the beach, and we all know not to venture to the shore after sunset without backup.

Was there no widespread cries of locals-hate-newcomers because the accused doesn't have a Hawaiian last name? What is Schnabel anyway? But Pa'akaula? Oh, yeah, gotta be.

Is it because it was a military couple in the Waikele case, and national sentiment is sympathy and gratitude for what military families have suffered fighting an unpopular war on our behalf?

Were people so focused on utterance of the "H" word in the Waikele case that it became the defining moment, the harshest blow, in the attack?

Or is a white guy from the Mainland getting killed on a Nanakuli beach after dark just so typical it doesn't register as horrific anymore? Been dat way for years, brah, whatchoo expeck?

Wherever the public debate faded to, it should come back full force over this case. A young life was lost, not in an altercation, but in what has been described by the old-school term "false crack," a sucker punch out of nowhere.

We should be able to go to the beach after dark and not expect to fall victim to all sorts of malfeasance. We should be able to think of Nanakuli as more than a place where you shouldn't go if you don't want to get hurt.

We should be shocked that this sort of thing happened, not unimpressed because it's such a cliche.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.