Newswatch

By Star-Bulletin Staff

Tuesday, May 18, 1999

Police Department honors
top cops, staffers

Several Honolulu Police Department employees received citations at the Employee Appreciation Day luncheon for outstanding performance.

As part of this week's Police Week, Chief Lee Donohue presented the following awards:

Lieutenant of the Year: Roger Kort, District 7 (East Honolulu), command office, for preparing presentation materials and assisting other HPD personnel. Recent projects included setting up the CrimeStoppers database, revising the district manual of operations and creating a patrol division personnel inspection form.

Detective of the Year: Kent Harada, District 4 (Windward), Theft Detail, for closing 95 cases in 1998 and bringing 75 felony charges to the prosecutor. Investigating burglaries in Windward and East Oahu led to property recovery and sentencing defendants to 20-year terms.

Patrol Officer of the Year: David Yamamoto, District 1 (Downtown-Chinatown), for work in the district command office from 1996 to early this year. He was responsible for answering telephones, tracking complaints and processing administrative paperwork. He worked with vendors and the city to maintain weight room equipment and facilities. Last August he donated one of his kidneys to his sister.

Civilian Employee of the Year: Ada Conching, Records and Identification Division, for work in Records and ID for 24 years and promotion to her present position of police report reviewer II in 1993. Always doing more than her share and volunteering for more, she has received nine commendations in the past two years and has been nominated twice for civilian employee of the quarter.

The Citizenship Award went to Bernard Louis. Four years ago, he started an after-school basketball program at Kaiulani Elementary School, where he is a custodian. He also organized a parents club to raise funds for uniforms and trophies.

747 returns to Japan after teen becomes ill

TOKYO -- A Japan Airlines jumbo jet bound for Honolulu returned to Tokyo's international airport at Narita early today after a 14-year-old Japanese passenger became ill, an airport official said.

JAL Flight 76, with 278 passengers and crew members on board, returned to Narita at 1:14 a.m., said Hiroshi Katashina, an airport information officer.

Chevron agrees to pay $3.25 million for spill

Chevron has agreed to pay $3.25 million in restoration costs and fines as a result of a major oil spill at Pearl Harbor nearly three years ago.

An estimated 41,000 gallons of oil spilled into Waiau Stream when a Chevron pipeline near the Hawaiian Electric Waiau power plant ruptured on May 15, 1966. The oil spread into Pearl Harbor, where it covered 2,000 acres of open water.

The proposed settlement includes $1.55 million for renovation of the Arizona Memorial, $1 million for ecological restoration, $600,000 in additional restoration costs and $100,000 in civil penalties for violation the Clean Water Act.

The settlement proposes that Chevron finance construction of a permanent shoreline protection system in front of the visitor center to prevent erosion and pay for a new dock for Arizona Memorial boat tours.

The public will have until June 1 to comment.

State to pay $400,000 to settle sexual suit

The state Department of Education has agreed to pay more than $400,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims five girls were sexually harassed by a former Wahiawa Intermediate School teacher.

The lawsuit filed last year alleged that the five girls were sexually harassed and touched, threatened and intimidated by music teacher Kurt Sewake in the 1996-97 school year.

Sewake resigned, but the lawsuit said the department did not take strong enough action against him. Each of the girls is to get more than $72,000.

In other news...

Dr. Hal Huggins, author of "Uninformed Consent," will discuss hidden dangers in dental care at 2 p.m. tomorrow at the Waikiki Community Center, 310 Paoakalani Ave.

Huggins lectures worldwide on effects of metal amalgams used in dental procedures. The cost of his talk here is $5. Call 923-1802 for more information.

Wills and estate planning will be discussed at a free seminar at noon May 26 in the Supreme Court Courtroom, 417 S. King St.

The seminar is part of the state Judiciary's "Lunch 'n' Learn the Law" series.

Attorneys David C. Larsen and Patricia Y. Lee, both listed in The Best Lawyers of America (1999-2000) and Honolulu Magazine's Hawaii's Best Lawyers (April 1999), will be featured.

Update Shark case open Gary T. Kubota, Star-Bulletin WAILUKU -- Maui detectives are continuing to classify as a missing person the California woman who, according to her husband, was killed by a shark two months ago today. Lt. Glenn Cuomo says police have found no body of Nahid Davoodabai, who went kayaking in west Maui waters with her husband Manouchehr Monazzami-Taghadomi. Monazzami said he and his wife, originally from Iran, were on a delayed honeymoon and were kayaking when the wind shifted and blew them away from the Maui shoreline. He said his wife was in the water that night when a shark pulled her under and bit off an arm, causing her death. Monazzami said he drifted toward Kahoolawe, where he found a telephone in a former military bunker and called police.

See expanded coverage in today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
See our [Search] [Info] section for subscription information.

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Police, Fire



By Star-Bulletin staff

Neighbors find Waikiki
man dead, bound,
gagged, at home

By Craig Gima and Jaymes K. Song
Star-Bulletin

Homicide detectives are investigating the death of an 81-year-old Waikiki man who was found bound and gagged inside his Waikiki apartment.

Friends and neighbors are puzzled at why anyone would want to kill Fred Cramer, who lived a quiet, relaxed life at the Venture Isles Apartments in Waikiki.

He took long walks, trimmed and watered the plants and fixed things around the building. He also made friends with and did favors for the other elderly tenants in his Cleg-horn Street neighborhood.

"He's helped me a lot," said neighbor Norma Courtney. "I have arthritis. He would go to the store for me when I couldn't go, little things like that."

Cramer was last seen Saturday morning, police said.

Yesterday morning, seeing that newspapers had started piling up in front of Cramer's unit, the apartment manager and a resident went to check on him.

They found his body in the bedroom. Police had no motives and no suspects as of this morning.

"He was a good man," said Amyer Haaheo. "He would go out of his way for you."

Haaheo said he warned Cramer about being too friendly and being careful about opening his apartment door for anybody.

"If he opened the door, it had to be somebody he knew," Haaheo said.

See expanded coverage in today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
See our [Search] [Info] section for subscription information.