2001-05-18 Police Commission Minutes

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Regular Session Minutes May 18, 2001 Page 2 DANIEL GRANT JOHNSON came before the commission and stated that he is President of Disability Rights Hawaii and is speaking regarding a gentleman who is on the agenda. Recommends that the police department have an ongoing disability awareness and sensitivity training program that they can implement at least once a year with refreshers every following year or so. There is a wide -range of disabilities throughout the population, some are obvious and some not. If an individual is not exhibiting any kind of violent behavior to himself or people around him, talking would be the best way to resolve a problem. However, things are warranted when there is danger to people. MORTON BASSAN came before the commission to speak on Correspondence 059. He has an orange grove on South Point Road that has been repeatedly raided by thieves. He made 21 police reports and got no action. He lost over $900,000 worth of oranges this year. Kona police refuse to do anything. He wants his people legally deputized so they can take action. Vice Chair Manago stated that he spoke to Assistant Chief Mahuna about his concerns, and they will get back to him. If he is not satisfied, he can then file a notarized complaint. Commissioner Mills moved to have the police department provide information to the commission on their findings regarding Mr. Russell and Mr. Bassan's concerns. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Muller and unanimously carried. JULIE JACOBSON came before the commission as a council member because Phillip Worman wrote her a letter about his concern. She is remaining neutral, and not taking a position. Thinks this is an opportunity to take a pro- active approach to the overall subject of working with the disabled community and the police. Understanding communication and behavior and the potential for misunderstanding is easy in this field. She understands some training of this has been done in the past, but it needs to be updated because of the turnover of officers and also because the field itself changes. There's a lot of new ideas about how to handle disabilities. DEL PRANKE came before the commission and spoke on his complaint HPC 01 -11. This case was brought before Judge Sandra Schutte with motion to dismiss this case with prejudice. That means that the documents from the court are now public documents, so there's no matter of personal privacy. He is filing a complaint against a detective for failing to conduct an impartial investigation. Believes the officer was pressured by the politics of having the police chief make this complaint and to doing a poor investigation. The detective failed to obtain all the photos taken during the incident. He should have collected the negatives. Former Chief Carvalho field a harassment charge against him which is shibai. He then told Officer Toledo, who lives a house or so away from him, that he had trespassed on Officer Toledo's property. That was blatantly false. This should have been obvious by the evidence, and this should never have gone to the prosecutor's office. Further stated that he has more evidence to present and is willing to continue at another time when the commission does not have such a full agenda.