Drive would put one in each patrol officer’s hand BY DENNIS WILKEN TGI Staff Writer A police officer and his brother have started a program to help combat what they perceive as a growing crime problem on Kaua’i. Gregory Smith,
Drive would put one in each patrol officer’s hand
BY DENNIS WILKEN
TGI
Staff Writer
A police officer and his brother have started a program to
help combat what they perceive as a growing crime problem on
Kaua’i.
Gregory Smith, a Kapa’a chiropractor who was instrumental in the
movement to get a reward fund established in the still unsolved serial murders
on the island’s West Side, said he and his brother, Shawn Smith of the Kaua’i
Police, have been working on Adopt-A-Cop since the beginning of
September.
“The crime rate is going up but our police force,
technologywise, is in the dinosaur age. And it’s time to catch up,” Smith
said.
Adopt-A-Cop is a program by which local businesses each buy a new
portable Motorola MTS 2000 Model 2 radio for a police
officer.
“Communication is the most important tool for a police officer.
Currently there are only 12 portable radios available to the patrol officers,”
Smith said. The existing radios must be shared among 72 officers, he
said.
The goal of Adopt-A-Cop is to collect enough donations to purchase 60
more portable radios, one for each officer.
Each radio costs
$2,546.
“What we really like about this concept is that it brings the
police force and the community together. Each business would adopt a police
officer and that officer would become a direct link” to that business, Smith
explained.
He said Adopt-A-Cop has the blessing of police chief George
Freitas and Mayor Maryanne Kusaka.
Local businesses that have already
adopted a cop include King Auto, KONG Radio, U.S. Financial and Hancock &
Co. and JJ’s Broiler.
Checks for the program, payable to the Kaua’i Police
Department, can be sent to Adopt-A-Cop, 4504 Kukui St. no. 8, Kapa’a, HI
96746.
Smith can be reached at 823-8888.
Staff writer Dennis
Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and dwilken@pulitzer.net