Left-wing Democrat Kirill Basin knocked out cold on a Maui beach and now held on US$1 million bail

Democrat congressional candidate Kirill Basin, 40, is sitting in a Maui jail cell on US$1 million bail after police alleged he threatened to shoot a woman over loud music, menaced beachgoers with a knife, and was finally stopped when a local construction worker knocked him out cold.

Basin is running for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district, the seat held by Democrat Jill Tokuda. He's charged with two counts of first degree terroristic threatening, a felony in Hawaii, over the confrontation at Keawakapu Beach in South Kihei on Saturday, 1 August local time.

The whole thing was caught on video, and the video is why the story has gone around the world.

It started when a man, 61, asked him to turn the music down

Police say the trouble began when a 61 year old man asked Basin to lower his music. Basin allegedly responded by implying he had a firearm and threatening to shoot the man's wife.

Footage filmed by a beachgoer shows Basin, shirtless, stalking between beach chairs and picking arguments with one group after another. "I told him if he wants to go to the hospital, come here," he tells one group. When a woman calls him a child, he demands to know what she said, then threatens to put her "in the ground" and "in the hospital" before walking off.

At one point the row appears to settle. Basin shakes a man's hand and declares "it is over." It wasn't. Seconds later he's shouting obscenities at another beachgoer and challenging men to fight.

Kama Homan ended it with a left and a right

Kama Homan, a construction worker with mixed martial arts training, had been watching from down the beach and decided to step in.

"I'm like, maybe I should intervene," Homan told Hawaii News Now. "As I got closer and closer, he was just getting more irate and violent."

The video shows Basin shoving Homan, stumbling backwards over two beach chairs, then getting up and swinging one of the chairs at him. Homan swatted the chair aside and answered with two punches.

"He put his hands on me and as soon as he tried to shove me, I hit him with a left and a right," Homan said. "That's when he stumbled and fell over the chairs."

Basin was knocked out cold in the sand. Homan stood over him repeatedly telling him to "wake up." When Basin came to, he reportedly told someone he was "going to jail," then charged at Homan again anyway. Asked later whether he'd been afraid, Homan said he didn't even know who Basin was. "Do what's right, because that's what we should do," he said. "That's my whole motto in life."

The complaint says there was a knife. Brandon Segal says there wasn't

The criminal complaint alleges Basin threatened multiple people during the confrontation, and a second felony count specifically alleges he threatened Homan with a knife. Police say Basin threw the knife into the ocean, and Homan says he recovered a 5 inch switchblade and handed it to Maui police. "He ended up pulling the knife out on me after the altercation," he said, adding that was the moment he realised how far off Basin really was.

Basin's lawyer, Brandon Segal, disputes it. "There's no evidence in any of these videos that have been circulated tremendously that he ever had a knife in his possession," Segal said, calling the bail figure "outrageous" and stressing that his client has the presumption of innocence. "These are just allegations," he said. Segal told the network the circulated videos also show no evidence Basin ever had a firearm in his possession.

Basin appeared in a Wailuku courtroom in handcuffs on Tuesday local time, where a judge kept the US$1 million bail in place.

Maui police already knew Kirill Basin before the beach

This wasn't Basin's first arrest. Police say he's been arrested repeatedly since May over separate assault and property damage incidents, and several people have taken out temporary restraining orders against him.

One of them is Maui County Council member Thomas Cook, who sought protection after Basin disrupted a council meeting in May, saying he feared for his own safety and that of his staff. Hawaii News Now also reported an allegation that Basin brandished a gun during a May argument with county workers. None of those matters has been decided by a court.

If Basin makes bail, the conditions read like a list of everything that went wrong on Saturday. He must have no contact with Homan and four other people, stay away from Keawakapu Beach and its car park, possess no firearms or ammunition, stay off drugs and alcohol, submit to random drug testing, and undergo a mental health assessment with any recommended treatment.

Basin remains a declared candidate for Hawaii's 2nd district. His preliminary hearing was set for Thursday afternoon local time, Friday morning AEST.