Another day,
another burglary

The high incidence of crime makes
it look like crime is rampant

By Richard Borreca
Star-Bulletin

Mufi Hannemann had just won election to the City Council when his wife, coming home one Saturday, saw a car with the motor running sitting in the driveway.

Thinking it might belong to a campaign helper, she wasn't alarmed until she saw a man carrying a box run out of the house and get into the car.

She just had time to see the family's computer and stereo whiz by in the car as it sped away.

Another burglary.

Theft is the crime uniting police and residents of Honolulu to complain that crime is rampant.

"When people are sent to prison, the ones who committed property crimes are released first," Michael Nakamura, Honolulu police chief, complains.

In Pearl City, which had 241 burglaries, the highest number on the island in the 10 months surveyed (August 1996-May 1997), police acknowledge they have a problem.

"To prevent burglaries, we try to be visible, to put a lot of police out on the street," veteran Pearl City police Lt. Danny Teller says.

Officer Anthony Sagun, who patrols the Pearl City beat, says the middle-class working area empties every weekday morning as residents commute to work.

"The culprits know people have jobs. They are very opportunistic; they look for signs (that no one is home), trash cans not picked up," he said.

Salt Lake is another high-burglary area.

Gerald Sumida, Salt Lake Neighborhood Board member, says it used to be that nothing happened to your home or one in your neighborhood.

"We wouldn't have gotten involved, but the crime was coming up our side," he said.

"We felt there were a lot of things going on -- there are a lot of crimes against the elderly, break-ins, people stealing from vehicles, even service trucks, going into garages.

"My boy's brand new Nike shoes were taken. We noticed that neighbors across the street had break-ins."

City Councilwoman Donna Mercado Kim, who has helped form several citizens patrols in the area, worries that the problems of theft and burglary are getting worse.

"They are becoming more blatant. People will come in the side door, while the homeowners are in the front yard. People steal things out of garages," she said.

"A lot of the problems are because these people are on drugs and they desperately need money for their habit. So they aren't thinking straight and they do these blatant crimes.

"The danger is the person is at home and encounters one, then their lives are in danger," she said.

Sgt. Clayton Chung with the Pearl City police cautions that while there are problems, things aren't desperate.

"We feel we have a handle on the problems," he said.

"It isn't an out-of-control situation. We have a large population and a large number of motorists going through the area."

Lots of people moving through an area gives police problems, because they can't keep track of neighbors, strangers or criminals.

Also, high traffic volume lulls neighbors into assuming that anyone new on the street is a visitor, police say.

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Day Two