01-29-20 Regular Session Minutes

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Department. And although they were occupying space, about five or six miles down the road at Pohakuloa, both times it took almost an hour for them to come in and respond to our calls. Mainly because they waited until they had about 14 cars, 14 officers gathered from who knows where. Other parts of the island waited for them to come up so they could come in for us. And both times they refused to be of assistance to us because no one was physically attacked or physically hurt. So because we were threatened but not actually shot or stabbed or punched, they felt that they had nothing to do with it and they left. So those are the only times that we, on the Mauna, those of us in the encampment ever physically worked directly with the Police Department. So here's my formal testimony. I do support the words of Lanny Sinkin and Ana Na Wahine Kaho'opi'i and their testimony. And I don't believe the authority of this committee includes...should include second guessing law enforcement decisions. However if you venture into this area, you really should be looking at the expenditures of nearly five million dollars in overtime that was incurred by the Hawaii County Police Department in purchases. Not only overtime but purchases of weapons and supplies to militarize themselves in preparation for, I suppose, what they considered to be our insurgent acts. But we're, I remind you, very peaceful people. We have no weapons. Although my understanding is our bamboo flutes that we use in our ceremony was considered to be a potential weapon by an officer. You would have a hard time damaging anything with a small bamboo flute. But in their descriptions of us, those are the kinds of things racist things that they said about us in our stand. I'd also like you to look at the fact that road blocks were created under the guise of DUI checkpoints. And the roadblocks were often using State equipment and managed in a manner that is not appropriate or not customary for the normal DUI roadblocks. By using the highly qualified authority instead of you know the entry level police officers. And often giving tickets to motorist who were citizens traveling back and forth between East and West Hawaii, tourists. And sometimes going three miles over the speed limit or stopping them for such things as tint violations which have no rules attached to them. So there's no way to determine whether a tint is appropriate or not. And remind you that many police vehicles also have tinted windows. We had one kupuna who was stopped. A woman, elderly woman, driving by herself who was stopped. Asked to get out of her car, frisked by a male police officer and investigated as if she were carrying contraband. She had a cooler in her backseat of her car with water and ice in it. She come from camp. The intimidation practices caused citizens like that to be fearful to not want to file a report with the Police Commission because it would 24