HANALEI — Some North Shore residents are saying they will use weapons to
protect themselves and are planning to mobilize a community watch program
following several reports of sexual assault and burglary in Hanalei and nearby
Anini Beach.
Pete Fielder, who owns a home off Aku Road in Hanalei, said,
as a last resort, he would shoot anybody who tries to break into his
home.
“My wife is here,” he said. “Somebody came in here, I would shoot in
the leg or something. Whatever.”
A woman living off Aku Road said she and
her roommate have weapons and would use them to protect themselves.
Sexual
assault reports include an incident in mid-March involving a woman visiting on
Kaua’i and staying at a vacation rental on Weke Road in Hanalei. She was asleep
when the assailant entered her bedroom and attacked her.
Residents say two
incidents occurred in April in the Aku Road vicinity. One involved sexual
assault, the other a burglary. Police say they have no record of the alleged
sexual assault.
In the break-in, a woman said somebody broke into her home
off Aku Road in the early morning hours as she slept. Her screams caused the
assailant to flee. A neighbor chased him for six blocks until the man escaped.
On April 24, a 14-year-old girl reported that she had been raped at Anini
Beach.
The incidents have left some residents angry and frustrated.
“It is a big deal having your space invaded,” said one woman.
It just
wasn’t her space being invaded. It was the entire neighborhood, said
another.
Joyce Pa, who lives on Aku Road, said her neighbors have decided
to create a neighborhood watch to help police deter crime in the
community.
“We are on community alert,” Pa said. “We will help each other.”
But neighbors were reluctant to interfere in the Aku Road break in because
they thought she was involved in a domestic argument, said a female resident,
who asked not to be identified. “It is scary. They don’t want to get
hurt.”
The woman whose home was broken into off Aku Road, declined to
discuss the incident and asked not to be identified. She said only that many
drifters have moved into the Hanalei area and are a cause of concern for single
women.
She also said women need to call police if they suspect they could
be a victim of a crime.
“I don’t want people to turn a blind eye to it,”
she said. “If you have seen anything going on, report it to the
police.”
Kaua’i police Lt. Bill Ching said he wasn’t aware of a sexual
assault that occurred on Aku Road.
However, he said, the March incident on
Weke Road and the burglary of the woman’s home are under
investigation.
Ching said there is no evidence at this point to indicate
that the assailant in the rape case and the burglary incident is the same
person.
“I can tell you it is not one guy doing all of this,” Ching
said.
Fielder said the proximity of the crimes to one another suggests
otherwise.
“This one rape (on Weke Road) is only two blocks a way. This one
(the burglary) was right here, one block away, and the other one (in early
April) is five houses away,” Fielder said. “You got a crazy guy out there.”
In the Weke Road incident, the victim told police she was assaulted after
she had gone to bed and her boyfriend was asleep in another room.
In the
Aku Road incident, the woman said the man cut through a screen window in the
early morning hours and entered the house as she slept.
