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Raising Cane Rob Perez |
FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Conrad Moleta, 13, was confronted and arrested while sitting with his brother, Norman Salsedo Jr., in their mother's car at the Waipahu Library. Conrad is holding a toy gun similar to the replica he was arrested with. The original toy gun, which is being held as evidence by police, was mostly black and beat up. The orange tip, which indicates it is a toy, was partially obscured, according to the family.
Juvenile’s arrest shows
fake guns are no jokeOne minute Conrad Moleta, 13, was waiting in the family car parked outside Waipahu Library, talking to his 9-year-old brother as their mother dropped off some documents in a nearby office.
The next minute Conrad was staring down the barrel of a gun.
A police officer with his pistol drawn had rushed the Ford sedan and demanded that Conrad, an 8th-grader, and his brother, Norman Salsedo Jr., a 4th-grader, put their hands up, according to the two brothers.
HONOLULU POLICE DEPARTMENT
This is a police photo of the toy cap gun that was confiscated from Conrad Moleta.
As several other officers converged on the vehicle, surrounding it, the boys raised their hands, baffled yet terrified.
"I was really scared," Conrad said. "My whole body felt numb."
Their mother, Melvette Moleta, who estimated she was away from her boys less than two minutes, returned to find a nightmarish scene of police officers and police cars with flashing lights surrounding her parked vehicle, her two frightened sons inside.
The older boy eventually was arrested. He was taken to the Pearl City police station, where he was placed in a caged holding area, photographed and fingerprinted before being released a short time later to his mother.
Conrad's offense?
The teenager allegedly violated the city's new replica gun ordinance. He had an old toy cap gun on the car console next to his seat, a replica weapon that, based on a picture of it provided by police, looks menacingly like the real thing.
Conrad said he wasn't playing with the toy as he sat waiting for his mother, who had just picked up the boys at their Pearl City schools and drove to the library to drop off the papers.
But Conrad did acknowledge playing with the cap gun briefly -- twirling it on his finger as he sat in the front passenger seat -- as his mother drove through Pearl City earlier that afternoon of Sept. 4. His mother immediately admonished him to put down the toy, saying someone might mistake it for the real thing.
Apparently someone did and called police.
Because the case still is under investigation, police wouldn't discuss what officers witnessed when they pulled up to the Moleta's car at the library. A spokeswoman would only say that police earlier had been tipped by a caller who reported seeing a male pointing a weapon outside a car window. The caller provided a description of the vehicle.
Shortly before that call, police also had received a report of an armed robbery at a Waipahu business. The suspect had fled on foot.
Both reports probably explain why the initial officer approached the car with his weapon drawn.
Conrad's arrest underscores that police are serious about enforcing the new replica gun law, which has been on the books only since July. The ordinance prohibits the carrying or displaying of unconcealed replica guns in public places.
Police pushed for the law because many replica guns today look so realistic that even officers have trouble telling the difference, a situation that could turn deadly under certain circumstances.
Adding to that potential, many kids paint over the replica's bright orange barrel tip -- the typical indicator of a fake gun -- to make the replica appear more authentic.
While no one in the legal community I talked to questioned the way the police approached Moleta's car, given the separate reports of the armed robbery and a male pointing a gun from a car, several criminal defense lawyers questioned the decision to arrest the boy and treat him as if he were a common criminal.
Once police determined that the boy wasn't involved in the armed robbery and that the replica was only a toy, why did officers arrest him?
If police didn't want to use their discretion to simply warn the boy about the new law, why didn't they issue a penal summons -- instructions to appear in court at a future date, usually used in cases involving minor charges -- rather than arrest him?
Why make the kid take off his shoes, remove his necklace and belt, empty his pockets of personal effects, sit in the back of a squad car, get fingerprinted, have his mug shot taken, answer questions from a caged holding area and go through the rest of the degrading process of being booked?
"What great benefit has been served by arresting him and making him go through all these steps?" asked Keith Shigetomi, a criminal defense attorney, who is representing another suspect in a separate replica-gun case.
I asked a police spokeswoman whether the arrest was a bit heavy-handed and whether officers had the option of issuing a penal summons. She wasn't sure on the latter question and didn't respond to the former.
Police confiscated the toy gun found in the Moleta car as evidence. Although they wouldn't permit the newspaper to photograph the toy gun, they provided a photo of it, and most people probably would be hard pressed to tell that the replica was indeed fake, especially if seen at a distance.
What makes it even more difficult is that the orange tip of the gun barrel appears to be painted over, obscuring the one tell-tale sign of a replica.
Up close, however, Conrad said the cap gun clearly looked fake. He said bits of the orange still were evident on the barrel tip.
Conrad said he and a friend found the beat-up gun earlier this month on a dirt road near his Waipahu home.
Moleta acknowledged that the kids shouldn't have had the cap gun in the car, but she didn't realize it was there until she saw it on the back seat while on her way to pick up the boys.
Still, she's upset at how police treated her 13-year-old son, whom she described as a responsible youngster who has never been in trouble with the law, is well behaved, gets As and Bs in school and is a quarterback for his Waipahu youth team. "He's a good kid."
Moleta also is worried about lingering effects the terrifying incident may have on both boys. Conrad said the police officer's gun was pointed directly at his head, and the officer also briefly pointed it at his younger brother, who was in the back seat.
"This whole thing was really tormenting to them," Moleta said. "Now they have to live with this fear."
Parents, take heed of this tale.
If your kids have any fake guns that may be mistaken for the real thing, get rid of those toys.
As is clear from the misfortune of Conrad and Norman, police aren't taking the problem of replica guns lightly.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
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.
