By JOHN BURNETT
Tribune-Herald staff writer
A Pahoa man is suing two police officers he alleges roughed him up last August for taking video of them responding to an affray outside a Pahoa nightspot.
The civil suit was filed Thursday in Hilo Circuit by attorney Gerard Lee Loy on behalf of Damon Tucker, who operates an online blog about the Big Island. Tucker is alleging that at about 1:30 a.m. Aug.6, 2011, Puna Patrol Officers James Waiamau and Matthew Bartz “intentionally, willfully, wantonly, recklessly … assaulted and battered” Tucker, “causing him physical injury, pain and suffering, and serious emotional injury.” The suit, which seeks unspecified general, special and unspecified damages, also alleges that the officers damaged Tucker’s iPhone and Nikon camera.
“This lawsuit is a deliberate attempt to obtain redress for Damon Tucker for being assaulted and battered,” Lee Loy said Thursday afternoon. “We could have settled this case and this lawsuit is the last resort after we failed to settle.”
Lee Loy said he believes the county “made a mistake by not settling in this case.”
Neither the county nor the Hawaii Police Department are named in the suit.
“Right now, we’re only suing the police officers because that’s the only case we can prove at this point,” Lee Loy said. “I am going to be looking further, however, to see if there’s anything else I may have missed.”
Tucker was charged with obstructing government operations, a misdemeanor, after the incident outside Pahoa Village Club. Prosecutors dropped the charge in November.
Tucker said in August that he was on the sidewalk across the street from the nightclub by Luquin’s Mexican Restaurant taking video of a fracas in front of the club when he was tackled by Waiamau.
“I’m looking through my viewfinder and suddenly, this officer grabs me, slams me on the sidewalk, handcuffs me, picks me up, leads me back into Luquin’s parking lot, slams me on the ground again, takes my camera and my cell phone away from me, and puts it in a (baseball) cap,” Tucker said. “Then another cop drives over the cap and the cell phone. My camera got spared from that.”
Tucker also said he was handcuffed and left sitting on the sidewalk for “about 30 minutes” while police took statements from alleged combatants and witnesses. He said Waiamau then “stuffed me into his car and brought me to the station.”
He added that when he asked to use the bathroom at the Pahoa substation, an officer “slammed me into a jail cell with no cot or nothing, just the bathroom.”
Waiamau wrote in his report that Tucker “repeatedly refused to stop physically pushing himself between officers while they were engaged in interviewing witnesses and suspects, and appeared to be very intoxicated.” He stated that Tucker “shoved his camera into the faces of victims at the scene while they were being interviewed, and propelled them to become irate.” Waiamau also wrote that Tucker represented himself as a member of the media, but “was unable to produce proper media credentials” and “became combative and was subsequently arrested.”
Tucker filed a complaint with the Police Commission in December, which was subsequently dismissed.
Deputy Corporation Counsel Joseph Kamelamela acknowledged Thursday that Lee Loy and Tucker approached the county with a settlement offer.
“We have reviewed the police reports and I have some of the data from the Police Commission and their complaint. As far as we’re concerned, we don’t think there was any wrongdoing done by any of the officers,” he said.
Email John Burnett at
jburnett@hawaiitribune-
herald.com.
