Hug and Kiss your Children Today

A man who allegedly threw a boy off a pedestrian freeway overpass yesterday was occasionally asked to care for the toddler and recently had been sent for psychiatric evaluation, police said.

Matthew M. Higa, a 23-year-old Roosevelt High School graduate, was arrested yesterday in connection with the death of the boy.

Higa allegedly dropped the toddler 30 feet from the Miller Street overpass onto H-1 Freeway at about 11:40 a.m. where one or two west-bound cars struck the boy. The toddler was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:07 p.m. The medical examiner did not release the name of the child.

Police interviewed the boy's mother and her boyfriend last night. Police were trying to determine how Higa got the boy.

The mother said she had left the boy with her father, who was sleeping in their apartment. Her boyfriend was also in the apartment, she said. She said she went to Ala Moana.

Police said the toddler had wandered off and was returned to the apartment earlier in the day.

Higa and the boy's family lived in the same apartment building, said a neighbor who asked not to be identified. The neighbor said the mother's boyfriend often took the toddler upstairs to Higa's apartment.

The neighbor said Higa often displayed odd behavior. He walked up and down the stairs all night and would scream at 3 a.m., the neighbor said. He would sit on the ground in the garage during the daytime, the neighbor said.

Police said Higa had been a patient at The Queen's Medical Center's psychiatric ward as recently as Dec. 11.

Police said Higa occasionally watched the child, but apparently was not related to him. Police did not say where the child lived.

Such a tragic day here in so called Paradise.  Everyones Angry that somthing like this has happened,  This should have never happend to a little child.......Hug and kiss your Children today and every day.