Editorials
Wednesday, January 29, 1997
Police chief assigns
abusers to desk jobs
A new federal law prohibiting anyone who has ever been convicted of domestic violence from possessing firearms or ammunition is being implemented within the Honolulu Police Department. Officers with domestic-violence convictions will not be assigned to duties requiring them to be armed. Neither HPD nor the officers' union is complaining, and rightly so.
Elsewhere in the country, police departments or unions have expressed concern that the new rules, part of federal anti-crime legislation, would cost officers their careers. However, no terminations are being ordered here, nor are any foreseen.
Police Chief Michael Nakamura said that HPD has identified 12 officers who have been convicted of domestic violence from 1989-1994, and is trying to confirm an additional nine cases. Those 12 officers are now assigned to desk jobs and carry no guns.
Department rules call for all police officers to be armed, but those are correctly superseded by the federal statute. Nakamura should be commended for making no complaint or excuse. In fact, he says, "it's going to have a very strong deterrent effect on the way people conduct their lives."
The immediate effect has been to spotlight those officers with domestic-violence convictions, which must be causing them embarrassment with their co-workers as well as limiting their duties and professional mobility. Their absence on the front lines will be beneficial to both the police force and private citizens.
Not above the law
PUBLIC-employee labor unions in Hawaii have achieved extraordinary success in gaining, through collective bargaining agreements, virtually everything obtainable under the law. Apparently, that is not enough. The Legislature is now being asked to give unions the sweeping power to achieve through labor contracts what is forbidden by government laws.
This bill should be killed before it has a chance to take its first breath.
Pay-for-rescue plan
THOSE intrepid adventurers who brave the elements, get into trouble in the surf or the mountains, and then withstand the ignominy of being rescued and featured on the 6 o'clock news may face another travail: a bill for rescue-services rendered, courtesy of the local government. House Public Safety chairman Nestor Garcia (D-Waikele) is expected to move a bill that would mandate selected souls to reimburse the state and/or county for the thousands of dollars spent to rescue them.
Instead of imposing a seemingly uncollectable fee, money should be set aside to educate hikers and swimmers about basic safety precautions. That way, fewer rescue missions need to be launched in the first place.
Mahalo, Konishiki
THE only thing bigger than 603-pound Konishiki's girth is his heart. The former Salevaa Atisanoe, now a famous sumo wrestler in Japan, is playing host this week to 35 sixth-grade students from the Leeward Coast. In March, he brainstormed the idea of bringing financially needy kids from his hometown to see how at least one local kid made it big in Tokyo. Local kids are learning that there is a big world to conquer, a lesson already accomplished by big-hearted, big-thinking Konishiki.
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Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
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