About two dozen people attended a public meeting with East Hawaii Community Policing Section officers last Wednesday at the Mokupapapa Discovery Center in downtown Hilo.
Some thanked the officers for what is, essentially, a thankless job, while others raised questions about homelessness and its effects — and what police can do to alleviate those issues.
Lt. William Derr, East Hawaii Community Policing commander, was accompanied by his four Community Policing officers — Darren Abalos, Joshua Baumgarner, Robert Kamau Jr. and Joshua Willing — as well as School Resource officers Dustin Chaves of Hilo Intermediate School and Murray Toledo of Waiakea Intermediate School.
“My office is supposed to have eight officers, but I have four,” Derr told attendees. “They work as a really good team. A lot of these guys are on our (SWAT) team. That effectively takes them out of community policing for one day a week. But they also have specialized duties.“
According to Derr, Abalos spent a recent week “teaching all the new recruits arrest control techniques.”
“I’m telling you this because we’re constantly very busy,” he said. “And as much as we try our best to take care of everybody’s needs, sometimes it’s just logistically impossible.
“We ask for your patience on occasion, because we have all these other things happening.”
Derr said Community Policing’s purview includes investigating agricultural thefts, administering the Hawaii Police Activities League (HI-PAL) and issuing keiki IDs, as well as attending Neighborhood Watch meetings and helping with their concerns.
Willing, the newest team member, came to this meeting directly from a Hilo Downtown Improvement Association meeting.
“Officer Willing has taken it upon himself to do foot patrol pretty much every day, downtown,” Derr said. “We’re going to have officers walking around in the evening hours at least once a week, and we’re tossing around the idea of doing it on Fridays, because that’s the night market, lot of activity downtown.
“We’re still coordinating the schedule, but that will start (this) month.”
Businesswoman Lorraine Shin, whose term as HDIA president concluded at the organization’s February meeting, praised Willing as well as the team.
“We know we’re in very struggling times, and it’s not going to be easy, but we need the help of everyone downtown and have the support to make this happen,” Shin said. She added Willing “was going door-to-door, Monday through Friday, meeting with merchants, saying, ‘Hello, how can I help you?’
“And I asked him, ‘What about the evening?’ So, thank you, very much.”
One project assigned to community police, overseeing the Department of Public Works pressure-washing and scrubbing of downtown sidewalks at night to eliminate the stench of urination and defecation, recently ran into a roadblock, according to Baumgarner.
“There was a resident that made a complaint about the noise,” Baumgarner said. “They can’t do it during the day, because there’s vehicles in the way, there’s people walking on the sidewalk, so they try to do it at night. But because of the noise, they had to stop that.”
He added that Public Works is “trying to figure out when they’re going to get this done without affecting the noise ordinance.”
“They just asked if you guys can give them some time to come up with what they’re going to do. I know they’re working on it,” Baumgarner said.
A man at the meeting said he and his friends have a night out downtown on Fridays and complained about “a homeless encampment on the sidewalk” near Reuben’s Mexican Restaurant.
“We have to walk around it. They have dogs; they have huge structures and wagons and everything else. What is the policy on that?” he asked.
“If they’re not breaking any laws, we leave them alone,” Derr replied. “If a complaint comes in because they’re being noisy or blocking the sidewalk, we’ll go down and we’ll address it.
“Hopefully, with newly scheduled foot patrols, specifically on Fridays, we will help encourage that to not be happening right there.”
Derr said the Salvation Army has 25 cots at its Ponahawai Street location where the homeless can sleep nightly. He said some of those cots have been allotted to the police — but not for officers to snooze.
“If we come across somebody on the street — or, more typically, they get released from the hospital, and they have no home … and they’re just sitting on the bench in front of the hospital — we’ll go pick them up, and we’ll take them to the Salvation Army. And they’ll get a cot and a safe place to sleep for the evening. It’s worked really brilliantly,” he said.
One individual inquired what downtown businesses can do to stop drug trafficking on their property during nonbusiness hours.
Derr replied they can call the nonemergency number at (808) 935-3311 and request a beat check, and an officer not on a priority call will drive by the business to check for illegal activity as soon as possible.
“Also, we have what we call crime prevention through environmental design, where you can call our office and we can come to your business,” he added. “We’ll look around and see if there are modifications you can make that will discourage that type of activity when you’re not there.
“It could be as simple as putting in a motion-sensor light, or whatever is the case.”
Derr said both Community Policing and Hilo Patrol have access to the downtown police substation adjacent to the Mooheau Bus Station, but with patrol in their cars and Willing walking his beat, “I don’t think it gets manned that often.” He added that Civil Defense has four public safety cameras downtown that police can use for footage, if needed.
Another attendee asked if a personnel increase is possible.
“What’s the timeline, if any, for you to fill those four slots that you need to?” the woman inquired.
“That’s a great question, and I wish I could give you one. But we’ve been at four (officers) for years,” Derr replied. “It could be another several years. I just can’t say.
“But what I can say is my guys, they do a tremendous job given what we have and the scope of the myriad assignments that we have to do.”
Community Policing numbers are (808) 961-2350 in East Hawaii and (808) 326-4646, ext. 259, in West Hawaii. For more information, visit the Hawaii Police Department website at hawaiipolice.gov and go to “Community” on the drop-down menu.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
