Dem Congressional Candidate Pulls Gun on Government Workers

A Democratic congressional candidate in Hawaii is facing serious charges after police say he walked into a Maui government building and threatened two county workers with a firearm.

Kirill Basin, 40, who is running as a longshot candidate for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District, was arrested Friday after the alleged incident unfolded around 9:30 a.m.

Police say Basin fled the scene but was taken into custody several hours later. Authorities have not yet said what triggered the alleged confrontation or identified the workers involved, but the arrest came after days of increasingly strange and hostile behavior tied to the candidate.

Just two days earlier, Basin was reportedly escorted out of a South Maui town hall meeting after a heated clash with Maui County Councilmember Tom Cook and his staff.

Cook’s executive assistant, Jared Agtunong, later claimed Basin confronted him in the parking lot after being removed from the event, forcing police to step in.

Agtunong also filed for a restraining order against Basin, alleging that the candidate had sent him a series of disturbing and vulgar messages in the days before the confrontation.

According to the filing cited by Honolulu Civil Beat, Basin allegedly called Agtunong “a piece of trash,” told him to “think of my family,” warned him he was “f***ed,” and wished him luck “with prison.”

The restraining order request was filed Friday afternoon, roughly two hours after Basin was arrested in the firearm incident. A judge quickly granted the temporary order.

The troubling episode adds another bizarre twist to Basin’s already chaotic run for Congress.

Court records cited by local media show Basin had also been arrested earlier this month, on May 2, for disorderly conduct. On Thursday, just one day before his latest arrest, he filed a lawsuit against Maui Police Chief John Pelletier and Maui County over that earlier case.

Basin, who is representing himself without an attorney, accused authorities of wrongfully arresting him and subjecting him to “physical, sexual and psychological abuse” while he was detained.

He also promoted the lawsuit on his campaign Instagram account, claiming officers had “tortured” him for 14 hours.

Following Friday’s arrest, Chief Pelletier defended the department’s handling of the situation.

“The Maui Police Department will not compromise public safety, and incidents of this nature are taken extremely seriously in Maui County,” Pelletier said.

“I am extremely proud of the quick response and professionalism displayed by our personnel, which helped ensure a peaceful resolution.”

Basin was arrested on suspicion of first-degree terroristic threatening. Police said additional charges are still under review.

The case is likely to raise fresh questions about candidate vetting, public safety, and the increasingly volatile atmosphere surrounding local politics. For now, a Democratic congressional hopeful is not making headlines for his campaign platform, but for allegedly bringing a gun into a government building and threatening public employees.