TRACKING TROUBLE

TRACKING TROUBLE: Although Kaua`i is called the separate kingdom each island has a different character and culture all its own.

And with the explosion of blogging nowhere is there a more diverse community of news and political bloggers than the Big Island.

And whether they are reporters who blog or bloggers who report, that can lead to trouble for the local power structure, as self described blogger-who-reports Damon Tucker found out when he went to check out possible violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) at the Pahoa post office the day before X-mas.

As he took pictures of trash blocking the handicapped parking area and the hard-to-access, possibly non-compliant ramp all hell broke loose when an ever vigilant local postal employee took it upon himself to dub poor Damon a terrorist rather than allow him to make trouble for them over their handicapped set-up..

Here’s how Tucker described what happened next:

I was on my way out to my car, when this guy comes running up to me…
“Brah… what you doing?” He says

“Taking Pictures of the Post Office” I say

“Brah… This one Federal Building… that’s against the Law… Stick around… I’m calling the cops!”

The guy goes in and calls the cops on me. I’m thinking how friggin ridiculous…but ok… let’s see what the cops say.

So I stick around and as the cops arriving, I take a picture of them arriving.

Lady cop: “What you taking a picture of me for… that’s harassment you know?”

I’m like what? Since when is taking a picture of a Police officer or a building considered Harassment…

Officer… I’ve asked you not to take my picture and you took it…
.
I’m like… I took the picture before you even got out of your car and said a word…
Officer…”ERASE THAT PICTURE NOW!”

So I show the lady officer (J. Lee) the picture that I took of her and then showed her that I deleted it… Just to appease her.

I then ask if she would like to see any of the pictures of the Post Office… she refuses.

Then she asks Postal Guy if they want to press Trespassing charges against me… Post Office guy says no… that’s ok… just don’t ever take pictures here again.

So my question to anyone and everyone… Is there anything illegal about taking pictures of a Post Office?

Who was Harassed? The Post Office… or Me?

Since when did taking pictures of outside of buildings and/or police officers become “harassment?”

Sheesh… to think I was only there to drop off a package… Is it my fault I always carry my camera?

Heck… Tiffany… You better erase those pictures you took inside of the Post Office for gods sake before the Goonsquad comes after you!

Just kidding.

I can’t believe this Post Office. Maybe it is time to file a federal ADA Suit against them

But although Damon might have left it there others were perhaps more outraged, especially other bloggers and journalists.

And when long time reporter-who-blogs Honolulu (or more precisely Ka`a`awa) Ian Lind picked up the story, Tucker was apparently inundated with emails prodding into filing a complaint.

But like on Kaua`i it’s not very apparent how to do that on the Big Island. If you go to the Hawai`i Police Department’s (HPD) web site, despite their apparent embracing of “Community Policing” there is no where to tell you where to file complaints regarding officer misconduct.

A search of the site however does produce, if not a description of the process at least a form to fill out to file an official complaint with the Hawaii Police Commissions

The form says:

The Police Commission investigates complaints of misconduct against officers or employees of the police department while on duty or acting under the color of authority. The complaint must be received in the commission’s office within 60 days of the incident. A request for an exception to the 60-day rule must be in writing with an explanation for the delay.

While he apparently hasn’t filed a complaint- which must be signed and notarized according to the form, Tucker has written us with a little more detail in an email today.

He was apparently taking the picture in a public place and had even asked and gotten permission from one post office employee to take one picture through an open door.

[Correction: Damon Tucker in fact was refused permission to take any pictures by the woman. We regret the mistake.

Clarification: Tucker's email said:

One of the post office ladies came out and was sorting mail and left the door open to the post office. I asked her if she would mind if I took a picture of the inside while the door was open, and she said no. I didn’t really think anything at this point and continued to my car. Then I took another picture of the Handicap stall and was about to take a picture of the employee parking lot which was by my car… when a gentlemen came scooting out and asked me what I was doing.

Tucker has clarified that he meant to communicate that she told him he did not have permission rather than meaning that she didn’t mind if he took a picture. ]

He says that when another employee came out he demanded to know why he was taking pictures.

Tucker wrote

“I told him I was taking pictures. He asked me what for. I told him that I liked to take Pictures. He then re-emphasized… why and what are you taking pictures for. I told him I have a blog and I’m reporting about the Post Office (just as I have been reporting about many businesses in Pahoa during the last week).”

The Post Office’s web site does have restrictions on “filming and still photography on postal service premises” saying

“(i)nformal snapshots from handheld cameras for personal use may be allowed at the discretion of the postmaster so long as there is no disruption to Postal Service operations and provided the pictures are taken from areas accessible to the public”.

Tucker was apparently neither disruptive nor taking pictures “on postal service premises” unless the parking lot is considered such.

Tucker actually waited for the officer to arrive perhaps thinking that a person knowledgeable about the law would set the postmaster straight that his discretion ends at the end of the premises and doesn’t extend into the public right-of way.

But never underestimate the ability of some authority figures to defend businesses from snoopy reporters or bloggers.

If the postmaster was out of line the HPD officer was apparently outright abusive in citing laws that don’t exist and exploitive of the power of her uniform

Ticker also expanded on his description of what happened after he “snapped” a picture of the officer, snapped seemingly being the operative phrase around the Pahoa PO that day.

After the officer’s claim of harassment and the erasure incident- i.e. the destruction of Tucker’s personal property- it apparently got even weirder.

I felt extremely intimidated and knowing that this was the day before Christmas and no time to be getting arrested for refusing to obey a police officer… I did as she asked...

She continued to belittle me and yell at me about me about taking pictures of her and the post office. I then asked her if she would like to see any of the pictures of the Post Office and she flat out refused to even look at any of those.

Apparently there was nothing Tucker was going to do to calm the officer down and he did what anyone is supposed to do when an officer abuses his or her authority- comply now and complain later.

But Tucker was apparently too open and honest about who he was and what he was doing because he volunteered more info which apparently infuriated the abusive officer even further

When I explained that I had a blog… she flew off the handle. She started yelling at me saying… “Your going to put my picture on your blog without my permission…etc…” at the top of her lungs. At which point I told her that I’m always putting people on my blog and that it was my right to do so.

Damn straight Damon (he said cheering him on from a safe distance).

She then let into me about how it was illegal for me to post her picture on my blog. I even made mention that I put pictures of all sorts of people on my blog including the Mayor himself. She got extremely pissed and said that… “Well the Mayor is a public figure!”

I didn’t want to continue on with her and I felt the easiest way to diffuse the situation was to just sit there and agree with her before she came up with some lame reason to try and arrest me. It was bad enough that she extorted me into deleting the picture… I didn’t want to go to jail on Christmas Eve.

The press deserves no special treatment outside of the performance of their “job” nor asks for it but bloggers who act as reporters are now covered by the new Hawai`i Reporter’s Shield Law which, says:

(Reporters) shall not be required by a legislative, executive, or judicial officer or body, or any other authority having the power to compel testimony or the production of evidence, to disclose, by subpoena or otherwise.

The fact that bloggers engaged in reporting are included indicates that constitutional freedom of the press extends to anyone acting in the role of the press.

The outrage over an earlier incident of police harassment of reporter/blogger Joan Conrow over her reporting has died down now but unless police allow citizen journalists to do their job as community watchdogs we’re all in for a long lonely slide to fascism as the government- especially though the constabulary- conspires with the corporate class join to keep us in the dark.

CAN’T YOU HEAR THAT WHISTLE

CAN’T YOU HEAR THAT WHISTLE?: Tin political ears are often the coin of the realm on Kaua`i. It’s a tradition going back at least as far as Smokey Louie Gonsalves, who in the 50’s purportedly, approximately said “people will know what they think about that when I decide and tell them what they think”.

Kauaiians rarely cared in the olden days because the paternalism was so strong that people expected the roguish behavior that recently departed Bryan Baptiste’s father Stan exhibited by running the island as Mayor from a jail cell.

No matter how many times pundits cite “changing demographics”- a code for the exponential increase in the influx of mainlanders- nothing has changed since the first time we heard this during the 1980 elections.

So when Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) Chief Darryl Perry got off on the wrong foot by playing up high-tech abusable cop equipment , jacking up a peaceful sovereignty activist , pledging to “take care of” protesters if the Superferry came back and finally writing a condescending tone-deaf commentary in response to suggestions for instituting community policing techniques, people figured that the anyone upset about the desecration of the burial site at Naue had already been stuck with the proverbial fork.

All that was left was for the cultural defenders occupying the location was to count down the hours to the day of reckoning, scheduled for yesterday at dawn.

It was assumed that this would be the final nail in the coffin, solidifying the impression in the community that this was the official end any illusory “our friends and neighbors on the force” era of policing on Kaua`i and that the interests of money and power were to be protected at the point of a taser and a riot shield.

But they didn’t count on Perry being smarter than the average bear and having a political ear that could serve him well if he ever chooses to exercise it in the electoral arena.

Nothing would have seemed out of the ordinary had he ordered his force to round um up and cart um off in the paddy wagon and give the thumbs up to the construction crew.

Although people would have shaken their heads in disgust we’re used to doing that on Kaua`i. We would have gone on with our lives and perhaps occasionally bemoaned the day that Perry brought us into the era when the department fully served the new plantation bosses as they had enforced the laws made up by lunas since the first commercial sugar cane stalk was plunged into the `aina in Koloa.

No one knows what will happen from here in the courts. Apparently the law Perry cited regarding “desecration (such).that the defendant knows will outrage the sensibilities of persons likely to observe or discover the defendant's action“ has never been court tested, especially as it may conflict with the Burial Council processes.

But the fact that Perry took the chance at angering the all powerful land use lawyer Walton Hong and acknowledged that there are people who Hong and his client know full well have their “sensibilities outraged” speaks as much as the action itself.

It would have been easy for him to say, like the small but growing part of the “haole” crowd - the ones for whom we commonly use the word in conjunction with a certain copulatory adjective- that they’ve been doing this for years so why stop them now.

He could have ignored the obvious desecration of his own people’s culturally iconic bones and no one would have said anything but “well, same as it always was”

Today the progressive, culturally-sensitive haole community is singing Perry’s praises. These are the self-same people who were calling for his job if not head yesterday.

With his action Perry gained a bank-full of political capital in future endeavors. How he spends it could put those that were critical of his previous words and deeds behind the eight-ball for some time to come if he abuses it

Should he seek to spend it allowing the rogue element in KPD to abuse innocent until proven guilty suspects and non-violent activists, the funds could disappear quickly, although he has established enough credit to have a no-minimum-balance account for the time being.

People say Perry’s snatching victory from the jaws of defeat shows that he has a good heart in his chest. Maybe. But what was most useful to him yesterday at Wainiha was the uncommon-for-Kaua`i size of the brain in his head and those uncommonly astute ears.

DAWG, YOU GOTTA CARRY THAT WEIGHT

DAWG, YOU GOTTA CARRY THAT WEIGHT: One has to wonder whether this is now being done on purpose or whether Tom Iannucci is just lacks all judgment and discretion.

Another rant from the head of the Police Commission appears in today’s paper replete with a similar tone to, and the type of ridicule you’d expect from, some crazy rabid reporter but not from the top civilian official in the Kaua`i Police Department (KPD).

Whatever one thinks of Juan Wilson’s research or the points he makes in trying to get KPD to consider community policing policies and possibly get officers out of their cars, Iannucci seemingly doesn’t want to discuss anything. Apparently his new “style” is to just ridicule Wilson personally rather than actually argue the points of community policing and it’s applicability to Kaua`i.

Iannucci seems to have fun trying to make his points by using condescending and patronizing ridicule of Wilson personally with such ditties as:

“I appreciate your attempt to”,

“Nice attempt, but it just doesn’t work.”.

“So which Kansas City were you relating us to?”

“That’s why they have the little blue lights on the tops of their cars, with the little “woo woo” sound”,

“Look, here is the reality”

ending with

“It seems like you just got a problem with KPD and this is the real issue. After all the fuss, Wilson, I hope you are driving in an electric cart, or riding a horse yourself. That would only be right.”

But even when it comes to the subject at hand he argues against getting officers out on foot, bike, horse or even Segway by ridiculing anyone he can who would suggest that this is even possible in what he claims is a totally rural area.

His silly, non-analogous, un-visionary professings include such drivel as

Hey, I’m all for the Mayberry RFD lifestyle, where you, me, Barney Fife and Sheriff Andy are strolling down Rice Street talking about the Friday night football game and we stop by Aunt Bee’s house for some apple pie, or Portuguese bean soup. Where the biggest problem the town is facing is that Opey is cutting class to go fishing and they have a town drunk. I want that, Wilson, but the reality is, it’s not where we are at, nor does anyone believe we’re at that place either.

and

Your “Harvard” sociologist police officer, who wrote a book, is just one of over 800,000 officers across our country. Writing a book and going to Harvard does not make one an “expert” by any means.

Iannucci’s “can’t do” attitude seem to preclude all use of non-vehicular policing. His only true argument that addresses the issue is this:

Kaua‘i is a rural and very spread out island. We simply don’t have the manpower or the finances to support one or two officers per neighborhood, per shift, per week, island-wide with substations and equipment. But you’re more than welcome to petition the mayor or the County Council about your request.

Either Iannucci is the most disingenuous person on the island or he doesn’t get out much. Maybe he’s never been to the strip malls and towns, the shopping complexes and beach areas where bikes or horses might be appropriate since, looking that the police blotter, half of the crime seems to takes place in these areas.

How about putting a little thought into it Tom? Are you telling us it’s impossible to include bikes and electric cart patrols in our core areas? Are you saying it’s impractical to have daytime patrols in the makai areas say between Kawaihau Road and Lydgate Park patrolling the streets and beaches rather than doing the current drive-bys? How about the Lihu`e area from the hospital down to the airport up Rice Street and maybe over to Kukui Grove?

Only an idiot would think that we need to have a walking patrol up and down Papalina and Waha and over to Kua road in Kalaheo or put someone on a Segway up Olohena across Kamalu and down to Wailua.

But guess what- to conflate the idea of doing it where people congregate daily with putting an officer on foot atop Wai`ale`ale is just as idiotic- and besides making up such wild misrepresentational projections is OUR job Tom.

In dismissing the getting-out-of-the-car idea entirely, Iannucci has us laughing at him, not Wilson by putting up any straw man in a storm rather than trying to look at the places where community policing might make sense- yes Tom, like through Hanapepe town and down to Salt Pond up to ‘Ele`ele and down to Port Allen.

The Password today Tom is Disingenuity- when you say you’re

“wondering if the beat cop can make it from Salt Pond to Hanapepe Heights in time to stop a fight or a robbery”

you don’t mention of course that the same officer in a patrol car could be in Waimea when he gets the call and take even longer.

Or that the officer could be actually sitting there witnessing the car break-in or mugging without drawing attention to himself through the presence his police cruiser. Those examinations of the logistics of patrolling are the same whether you’re on foot on bike or in a car in that each has advantages and disadvantages.

But it is obviously easier to make up absurdities based on the worst way to distribute resources such as riding a Segway up the Hanapepe- Ele`ele hill instead of thinking about innovative ways to make better use of our policing resources.

Would it take that much to equip some patrol cars to carry bikes and get officers out of them when they’re not responding to calls from the boonies? Or is that too hard to imagine Tom- does it huwt yaw widdle bwane to try to figure out how to do it?

You apparently strained your neurons to the breaking point to figure out all the misrepresentations and excuses in the world for not even considering where community policing might be appropriate. It might not be appropriate.

But you’d never know due to your rejection of the concept out of hand which is even more dismaying than the dismissive, pejorative and downright disrespectful attitude you display in dealing with the suggestions from someone you are supposed to represent in sitting on the Police Commission..

People expect broad brush spoofing derision, scorn and mirth out of this mangy mutt. But we don’t expect either the attitude nor the disingenuous distractions and misrepresentation from the top civilian official in our the paramilitary operation of our police force.

I hear they’re selling clues down in town Tom - maybe you need to get out of your car, climb in the bathroom window and trade in some of that Viagra for one. Or quit the police department and get yourself a steady job... like blogging.

BLEATER OF THE PACK

BLEATER OF THE PACK: There’s plenty of grist for the mill again today and apparently Kaua`i Police Chief Darryl Perry is still doing his best to not only fiddle while his Roman Centurions burn-out but claims the flames are actually nothing but maliciously-placed pieces of deceptively-decorated construction paper, with another tone-deaf head-scratcher in his weekly newspaper column “Ask the Chief”- presumably subtitled “But don’t expect a direct answer or for me to pick anything but the fluffiest of all fluff questions”.

In a week where, laid end to end, the criticisms of Perry and his Department would reach the long way from Ke`e to Polihale, da Chief chose to answer this questions- and we couldn’t make this up:.

“Boy, you and KPD have been getting blasted in The Garden Island by Juan Wilson, an opinion columnist. You seem to be doing a good job from the guys I talk to and there hasn’t been bad news in the paper since you took over. What’s going on?”

Well maybe we could- he could have found someone to ask “Chief it must be hard to sit at the right hand of God. Do you ever get tired of being right all the time and soooo perfect? How can we end all these insidious and subversive lies and ignorant condemnations of you and your department from naive fools and natural-born criminals?

And here’s the chief’s actual answer:

I really don’t know why the animosity or undue criticism. Perhaps the honeymoon is over, or perhaps it’s just misinformation, personal attitudes, bad past experiences or just wanting to bring things to my attention. Perhaps it’s a combination of all of the above. Either way, I don’t let personal feelings sidetrack me or KPD from our primary mission. But it saddens me to think that there are people, albeit a few, that would attempt to malign the good we’re trying to accomplish.

Oh that’s right, Darryl- we forgot that everything you do is faultless by definition and that anyone daring to questions anything you do is a miscreant and so their questions are always “undue criticism”. Why answer any questions when you can claim that they all stem from “misinformation, personal attitudes (and) bad past experiences”.

He then says:

Don’t get me wrong, I welcome public input, but in some cases, these types of comments are inappropriate and reckless. And although it does take time and energy away from working on more important issues, I still have to react to them because the public might believe some of the half-truths.

So if the Chief does “welcome public input”, where are the answers to the questions that aren’t “inappropriate and reckless”?

Is it true that there are myriad concerned of citizens out there who are making specific inquiries and are disturbed about publicly-reported charges of abuses of power, a lack of community-policing policies and who want to publicly discuss the necessity for purchase and protocols for use of tasers and riot gear?

Or is it just that Perry treats all comments and criticisms as “half-truths” that waste his “time and energy”?

It’s now gotten to the point where the lack of attention to the community’s trepidation over actual policing, process and departmental issues might no longer be the main issue. Concerns are now centering on the complete stonewalling of all comments regarding the force’s activities and policies.

We haven’t seen the Chief address any issue in anything resembling a straightforward way. Not once. All we hear is pooh-poohing, if we hear anything at all other than a declination to comment.

And when the Mission Statement is revised- as it again appears it has been according to their web site today- it is an “inside job” without any community input, perhaps in violation of state law, unless Perry has a specific ruling or opinion to the contrary.

Given the Chief’s persistent attitude how can we feel that, as required by law, we have any civilian control over our police force at all?

One of the issues that started this whole thing was the Chief’s apparent ignorance regarding the issue of use of tasers. He still apparently clings to the taser industry’s “are you going to believe us or your lyin’ eyes” assertions of non-lethality. We next expect their trade organization to claim they’re providing free shock-treatments to the mentally ill who routinely get zapped.

And Perry refuses to discuss the shift of protocol for use of tasers from “in lieu of deadly force” as originally sold, to using them “in lieu of coercive force”.

While the Chief may dismiss any discussion of this with a waive of his insularity wand he seems to be living in a dream world nonetheless and this article from Canada (thanks to Larry Geller for the directional arrow) shows again what happens when police get stun-happy, this time on an 82- year-old bedridden hospital patient who wouldn’t let go of a knife he was holding but not reportedly brandishing.

RCMP subdue hospitalized man, 82, with Taser

An elderly man in Kamloops, B.C., was zapped three times on the torso by a police stun gun while lying on his hospital bed, CBC News has learned.

Frank Lasser, 82, appeared fragile Thursday when he showed the Taser marks on his body and talked about the ordeal he went through Saturday.

"They [police] should have known I had bypass surgery," Lasser told CBC News.

Lasser has had heart surgery and needs to carry an apparatus to supply oxygen at all times. He was in the Royal Inland Hospital Saturday due to pneumonia but has since been released...

"I was laying on the bed by then and the corporal came in, or the sergeant, I forget which it was, and said to the guys, 'OK, get him
because we got more important work to do on the street tonight,'" Lasser said.

"And then, bang, bang, bang, three times with the laser, and
I tell you, I never want that again."

Kamloops RCMP said Thursday that officers had no other option but to deploy the conducted energy weapon when Lasser refused to drop his knife.

Canadian officials have been debating the use of tasers in recent weeks, some with an eye to banning them.

But an incident like that could never happen here despite multiple recent allegations including reported incidents of vice officers breaking down doors yelling to the innocent-until-proven-guilty and even mistaken-identity victims cringing on the floor with guns to their heads, “you have no rights- you’re a drug dealer”.

But none of our boys would never tase someone just for the heck of it or because they were late for their coffee break.

So tell us Darryl- just how does the community stand up and say (warning: humorist handbook mandatory reference) “bad cop, no donut” when were told that every complaint is presumed to be the result of an “attempt to malign the good we’re trying to accomplish.” and stonewalling is the order of the day, every day.

Let’s be surreptitious out there.

And speaking of the good they’re trying to accomplish, just what is that good and what are they actually doing?

When we criticized the unyielding obstinacy of the bad apples in the barrel and Perry’s apparent lip-service to “eventually” rooting out the corruption, we learned that a top priority for the Chief was to form an Internal Affairs (IA) Division, a quasi-separate internal division traditionally and ubiquitously used by PDs to investigate and if necessary sanction their own.

But during the discussion just prior to passage of the budgets and tax rate by the County Council at last Wednesday’s meeting, Councilman Ron Kouchi was speaking about budgeting choices and said “we talked to the Police Department about doing an internal affairs bureau but instead the determination was for some assistance on the clerical end.”

So was the department given a choice to either fund clerical positions or an IA division and chose the extra clerks? And if it was the Mayor or Council and not the Chief that made the decision, where was the protest from Perry?

Yet Darryl The Naked Emperor and Tom Tom The Clown Prince Commissioner continue to talk about their new IA Division that is now apparently at least another 13 months away from reality.

The problem is no longer just the tasers, the abuses of power; the “us vs. them” attitude, the lack transparency and adherence to state open records laws or the alarm caused by over-militarization of the department without sufficient civilian oversight and consultation.

It’s the fully tone-deaf nature of the who-the-heck-are-you-to-criticize-me tirades from the leadership of the Department and the Baptiste Administration’s and councilmembers’ complicitous silence and their seeming penchant for living in a state of denial regarding those pesky flames are lapping up against the walls of gleaming new Ka`ana St. KPD fortress.

But the Chief just sits in his office figuratively sipping ice-cold drinks and turning up the air-conditioning, asking “is it getting a little hot in here or is it me?”.

As usual, it’s a little o’ both Chief.

AS THE FUR FLIES

AS THE FUR FLIES: The dish continues and the dishes continue to fly in the local paper and in the blogosphere today over Juan Wilson’s weekend column and yesterday’s flippant response from Kaua`i Police Chief Darryl Perry.

This morning found a report by Wilson at his Island Breath web site purporting that it was not actually the “Mission Statement” of KPD that the Chief changed without going through proper state procedures as we detailed yesterday but rather the “Chief’s Message” which is right below the mission statement at the KPD web site but is not really worth the bandwidth it’s written on as an official document.

The “message” now includes the words “Aloha Spirit” and “integrity” according to Wilson, who posted Perry’s letter and a link to the new “Chief’s Message” and original “Mission Statement”

So essentially it seems that, if not guilty of illegally changing the Mission Statement of the Department, Chief Perry misrepresented what had changed as a response to Wilson’s critique of what’s wrong with KPD’s Mission Statement especially when compared with those on other islands.

But a quick look at the local paper also found another glib straw-man tirade this time from Police Commission Chair and ex-marine Tom Iannucci saying it indeed was the Mission Statement that was formulated in an insular manner without public input.

Iannucci said

The mission statement is just one of many works in progress. Before your attack on our department and its mission statement, the updated statement was being handed out. Myself, as a police commissioner, along with all the other commissioners present and the leaders of the department were handed the updated mission statement that has been worked on for months with the input from various members of KPD. Among other things, the revised mission statement included a section on the “aloha spirit” and its inclusion in Hawai‘i state law.

But with words like “verbal buffoonery at its finest”, “what planet Wilson (is) writing from”, “trash talk” and “the right to bash our department” Iannucci accuses Wilson of wanting to disarm the force and take away their patrol cars, all the while fear mongering and raising the specter of the “Oklahoma City bombing or the destruction of the World Trade Center towers”, waving the militarization-of-the-police-force flag with such aplomb as to make any Homeland Security nut and Patriot Act-loving Chaneyac’s crotch swell with a testosterone-fueled pride and fury.

But blogger Larry Geller of Disappeared News http://disappearednews.com/ wonders what article Iannucci and Perry read. He wrote us an email saying:

Judging from the reaction, Juan must have hit some sensitive points.

They are getting better at raising straw men. Now we've got the
fire department on skateboards?? Patrolling in electric carts is quite common, security guards use those and even Segways, as do some police I understand. Unless I missed something, Juan didn't suggest trading in their SUVs for these things, nor turning in their weapons.

The dialog is going. You have a newspaper that seems willing to take these things up. The Honolulu Advertiser here is quite different.

We’ve hear word that Wilson and Perry are tentatively scheduled to appear on a KKCR radio talk show on Thursday at 4 p.m. but whether their will both be live or whether the Chief will only sit for a pre-taped interview with programmer Jonathan Jay remains to be seen.

And evidently Darryl and Tom weren’t the only ones who read Juan’s column as an ill-considered, wild and fanciful rant.

This morning found Koko’s human, numero-uno Kaua`i news-blogger Joan Conrow assailing not just Wilson’s column but his future viability to speak on the issue saying:

Juan has already blown his wad with the cops, and he’s not going to get anywhere with them from here. He has lost all effectiveness, if he ever had any, as a spokesman on this issue.

She prefaced this by saying:

Juan lost credibility, at least with me, and most likely many others, when he started out by saying the cops should give up their guns and cars and use “sporty electric golf carts,” bicycles and horse patrols. That was before he morphed into a conspiracy bit about the cops “providing speculators security for unwanted development” and “protecting the pesticide spraying of GMO corporations on the Westside.” Huh?

When you come from an extreme premise like that, it’s easy to be discredited and dismissed, which both the chief and Iannucci did in their responses. And in the process, the legitimate concerns about the further militarization of police that Juan also raised go unexamined.

We’re not going to defend everything Juan had to say or how he said it but Tom Iannucci’s tome is certainly more indefensible in ostensibly denying there are any governance and oversight problems and giving the impression that everything’s hunky-dory at the “just doing our job” KPD.

Iannucci said

Unlike your conspiracy theory, our police officers have to go out and provide protection for both the Superferry and those who protest against it. They don’t arrest protesters, but those who violate those laws that allow us all free speech

If Iannucci is going to deny the harassment of dissidents then how about getting Perry to talk about the Apioalina and Mawae incidents instead of just stonewalling.

Iannucci says that

“to even insinuate that the chief and our officers are in some way ‘suppressing’ Hawaiian Sovereignty groups or ‘protecting’ the pesticide spraying by our children in schools is just shameful”.

If Tom is denying KPD’s complicity in any “cover-up” of what really happened in the west side spraying incidents then where is the police investigation of Sygenta and even the DOH? Perhaps it would clear them, perhaps it would collar them. But if there’s “no comment” and apparently no investigation how can the people think there isn’t something wrong?

Perhaps the lack of any substantive investigation in the light of overwhelming evidence Sygenta lied and tried to mislead and cover up their complicity and place kids in the way of harm is what’s “shameful”.

If KPD doesn’t know what everyone in town knows it may be because they didn’t try to find out.

Or are all the parent, teachers and community leaders and members in Waimea who allege a crime, a cover-up and a lack of police investigation all a bunch of liars and nuts, to be ignored and ridiculed too?

For Tom and Darryl’s information getting officers out of their cars and onto bikes, horses, electric carts and even on foot is a national trend in policing and is a part and parcel of a movement called “Community Policing”. Try googleing it. Thousands of jurisdictions throughout the country practice it. Our last two chiefs were outspoken proponents.

We would turn it around on Tom- is there never a circumstance where an officer getting out of his or her car and going sans six-shooter appropriate? It sounds like your answer is no.- never. That’s just as absurd as saying police should never drive cars or carry guns which we never head Juan say in the first place, only hearing this straw man from you and Darryl.

It isn’t about taking away all the cars and guns but it is about, where appropriate, putting policing on the ground in the community and making the officers part of that community.

But possibly Iannucci and Perry, if they have heard of this national trend in policing, see it as a challenge to the “us and them” mentality that people legitimately fear is the growing local trend under their tutelage.

That is what the problem is and why people like Juan see conspiracy everywhere. Whether they agree with him or not the Chief’s and Chair’s job is to understand, acknowledge and deal with the “reality” that Wilson isn’t alone and not to concoct their own fantasies to counter with an equally fanciful hyped-up, paranoiac “reality”.

Iannucci and Perry owe it to us and themselves to figure out why there are these “conspiracy theories”. Perhaps it is the dots they are unintentionally drawing that people are connecting.

Wilson is apparently judging KPD by it’s words and deeds and lately it has been dismal on both accounts. The fact that Iannucci and Perry don’t understand and in fact ridicule Wilson’s reaction to some of the Department’s recent alleged abusive words and deeds and refusal to discuss them is more telling than Wilson’s apprehension of and at a conspiracy.