Raising Cane
By Rob Perez
Friday, April 13, 2001
Brent White was flabbergasted. Public meet showed
cops overreactingHe went to a public meeting Wednesday at a public park to hear a public employee, Assistant Police Chief Boisse Correa, talk about how next month's Asian Development Bank convention will affect the Ala Wai Community Park, a public facility near where the ADB will gather.
Correa is in charge of security during the ADB event, which will be held over several days and is expected to attract thousands of delegates and protesters. The sessions also will generate international publicity for the state, something that worries law enforcement officials if protests take an ugly turn.
To publicize Wednesday's meeting, notices were posted at the Ala Wai community center, where the gathering was held.
White, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who has criticized police plans to close the Ala Wai park during the conference, showed up to hear what Correa had to say. As legal director for the ACLU, White represents an organization planning protests during the bank meetings at the Hawaii Convention Center.
When Correa, in his police uniform, spotted White and two others enter the center, the police official announced he would not continue speaking with attorneys present, according to White and two others there.
White said he was shocked. He told Correa he was entitled to be there, just like any other member of the public.
But Correa would not back down, threatening to leave unless White departed. Reluctantly, White left.
Correa, however, still refused to continue the meeting unless the two others who came with White also left. Neither was associated with the ACLU, but both were friends of White, he said. One even told Correa he was not an attorney and was just there to listen.
But when the police official continued to say he would leave, the pair left, not wanting to disrupt the meeting for the others who had come, they said.
White said the incident shows that the man overseeing security for the ADB meetings has no respect for people's constitutional rights. It also suggests how the police will deal with protesters that week, White said.
"It's absolutely outrageous," he said. "The police want to create an atmosphere so people are fearful of protesting."
Correa and a police spokeswoman did not respond to several requests for comment.
Honolulu police certainly need to be prepared in case protests get out of hand during the ADB meetings. Public safety must be a top priority.
But police should not overreact, as was the case Wednesday. Such actions only serve to reinforce critics' concerns that the police will be quick to trample on protesters' rights.
And that is not a message Hawaii should be sending the rest of the world.
Star-Bulletin columnist Rob Perez writes on issues
and events affecting Hawaii. Fax 529-4750, or write to
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu 96813. He can also be reached
by e-mail at: rperez@starbulletin.com.
