LIHUE — When people in Kauai took to the streets last year to protest against GMO crops, police monitored the demonstrations. But officers weren’t dressed in battle uniforms, and didn’t ride on armored vehicles carrying military-style weapons to confront the
LIHUE — When people in Kauai took to the streets last year to protest against GMO crops, police monitored the demonstrations.
But officers weren’t dressed in battle uniforms, and didn’t ride on armored vehicles carrying military-style weapons to confront the crowd. And for the most part, the events went off smoothly.
“In anything that we have done, the police have said that ‘we are hear to protect your First Amendment rights,’” said Mickey Boudreaux, volunteer with GMO Free Kauai, a group of citizen volunteers working on getting agriculture away from genetic engineering.
The group has held several demonstrations in public recently. The events come with police presence but volunteers say they feel more supported than concerned with KPD.
In general, the police never made their presence known in an intimidating way.
“Getting the permits wasn’t easy but once we had the permits, then we were all right,” Boudreaux said.
Officers armed like soldiers prepared for battle has become a growing national issue ever since violence between officers and people protesting the shooting of an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Missouri, grabbed headlines.
On Kauai, high-ranking police officials said their department is aware military-style weapons aren’t meant for day-to-day police interactions. They also said that heavy-duty equipment should be kept on hand just in case a crisis arises, and some equipment provided by the feds can double as emergency response vehicles during severe weather events.
Kauai Chief of Police Darryl Perry said he served in the military and has a good grasp of what is and isn’t appropriate in each division.
“We are not a military organization,” Perry said. “We’re a paramilitary organization, only in the sense that our command structure deals with rank and file, and the leadership that is required and the way we are structured. But in terms of being militarized, nothing could be further from the truth.”
Perry said KPD receives funding from the Department of Homeland Security to help purchase equipment that will help the community. The incident command vehicle, for example, is designed for extended criminal response events but doubles for rescues, hurricanes, tsunami warnings and other disasters.
DHS funding helped acquire a Lenco BearCat armored response and rescue vehicle earlier this year. It’s a heavy duty rig. But it is not to go into the community to be used against the community, Perry added.
“We call it a rescue vehicle,” Perry said. “If we have a hostage situation we can go in there and remove them without exposing officers to risk.”
While the nation follows the clashes in Ferguson daily, Kauai Police Commission Chair Charles Iona said there seems to be a push to have police departments nationwide curtail to civil rights concerns at the expense of protecting life and property.
This is “stepping back in time” as opposed to ensuring police and special services teams are trained and equipped to protect, he said.
A July bank robbery in Stockton, California, is an example of what happens when police are outgunned and unprotected against a criminal element, Iona added.
“Those machine guns did a lot of damage,” Iona said. “The police did not have a lot of armament there until the very end.”
U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (HI-2) last week called for the demilitarization of American police departments. She said the DHS is providing local police with armored personnel carriers and automatic weapons, which in turn train departments to conduct paramilitary law enforcement.
Police Commissioner Mary Kay Hertog, a retired U.S. Air Force Major General who worked in the field of military police, said it’s not necessarily the equipment itself, but of how it is used.
“If you notice in the Ferguson situation, the National Guard was called out and they were there to protect a command post,” Hertog said. “They were cognizant of the statement it would make to put military uniforms out front. You did see people laying on vehicles and pointing to the crowd so it’s not necessarily the equipment being used for protection, but how they are used toward the public.”
The standard issued weapon for KPD officers is the Glock Model 22. Officers on the special services (SWAT) team are trained to use shotguns, sniper rifles and semi-automatic weapons, in addition to tactics and crisis negotiations in volatile scenarios involving hostage or deadly weapons.
So far, several local demonstrators have said police and civilian interaction has been respectful when it’s come to recent rallies.
Andrew Fitts, a co-organizer of the Occupy Kauai events, said similar events around the world had problems with militarized police at prolonged events. The one-day Kauai events were more about awareness and the volunteers generally had good rapport with police.
“We never had anybody putting up major road blocks,” Fitts said, adding he’s more concerned about militarized police nationally.
“It does seem like plan to militarize local police forces,” he said. “This is not hardware left over from foreign wars, but a national government trying to get local police to increase their militarization.”
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Tom LaVenture, staff writer, can be reached at 245-0424 or by emailing tlaventure@thegardenisland.com.
