A Democratic candidate for Congress in Hawaii has been arrested after a confrontation on a crowded Maui beach escalated into violence and alleged threats involving a knife.
Kirill Basin, 40, who is challenging Rep. Jill Tokuda in Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District, was taken into custody after an incident Friday at Keawakapu Beach in South Kihei.
Video circulating on social media shows Basin wearing only his underwear while arguing with beachgoers after a 61-year-old man reportedly asked him to lower the volume of his music.
According to the report, Basin approached groups of people on the beach during the confrontation and at one point said, “I told him if he wants to go to the hospital, come here.”
The altercation later turned physical.
Video shows Basin attempting to swing a beach chair at a larger man before the man threw a punch that knocked Basin unconscious.
After Basin regained consciousness, the man was heard telling him, “Watch your f–king mouth Haole boy,” using a term sometimes directed at white people in Hawaii.
The footage also shows Basin later running toward the man while shouting, “Come on, b-tch!” but stopping short of another physical confrontation.
According to witnesses cited in the report, Basin then allegedly claimed he had a gun and pulled a knife during the incident.
The report states Basin allegedly threw the knife into the water, but responding officers later recovered it.
Police arrested Basin on two counts of first-degree terroristic threatening.
His bail has been set at $1 million.
The beach incident is the latest in a series of legal problems for the congressional candidate.
According to the report, Basin was previously arrested in May after allegedly pulling a firearm on two Maui County employees inside a government building in Wailuku.
He was charged with first-degree terroristic threatening in that case after authorities alleged he threatened two government workers before leaving the building.
Days before the beach confrontation, Basin claimed on Instagram that police had mistreated him during an earlier arrest, per the New York Post.
“This is the lawsuit I served today. It basically outlines how 3 police officers tortured me for 14 hours,” Basin wrote.
“That’s the gist. It’ll never happen to anyone again.”
The report did not indicate whether attorneys representing Basin had commented on the latest allegations.
The incident has drawn widespread attention online after videos of the confrontation circulated on social media, showing the dispute escalating from a disagreement over loud music into a violent encounter that ended with Basin’s arrest.
Basin remains a candidate for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District as the criminal case proceeds.
