In an apparent case of mistaken identity, a 50-year-old Puhi man claims that he and his son were threatened by a Kaua’i County Police officer Jan. 20 at Russian Fort in Waimea. The man, who has requested anonymity, said they
In an apparent case of mistaken identity, a 50-year-old Puhi man claims that he and his son were threatened by a Kaua’i County Police officer Jan. 20 at Russian Fort in Waimea.
The man, who has requested anonymity, said they were sitting on his 24-year-son’s car at about 12:45 p.m., “talking story and looking at the ocean,” when a police car sped into the parking lot, 30 feet from where they sat.
The man said the officer, who is named in a complaint against the Police Department but whose identity will be withheld until the matter is resolved, exited his car in a rush, hand on his service revolver, and began screaming.
The man said the officer called him “Chad Lewis,” a Kapa’a man police were seeking on domestic violence charges and a parole violation. Lewis, who was the subject of police requests in The Garden Island for help in finding him, was caught later that day in Hanapepe.
The officer yelled at him not to move “and pulls his gun,” the man said.
The man said the officer held he and his son at gunpoint for “what seemed like forever.”
Finally, after what the man characterized “as 20 minutes of terror,” the officer checked identifications, realized that the 50-year-old man was not 23-year-old Chad Lewis, and left the scene.
According to the father and son, the officer left without displaying “any remorse for his actions. We were just rubbish to be abused.”
The man said he went almost immediately to the Waimea police substation to file a complaint and was told to talk to chief George Freitas.
The man filed a written complaint at the chief’s office Jan. 22.
Yesterday, Freitas said he was aware of the complaint and that an internal investigation was underway.
The citizen “will be notified in writing of the result within six to eight weeks,” Freitas said.
He said that about 10 citizen complaints a year are made against Kaua’i police officers, and “a couple every year” are upheld.
Freitas said he looks into other incidents even when a complaint isn’t filed.
“I try to review every incident where someone is charged with resisting arrest” to make sure that officers “are using the proper levels of force” in making arrests, Freitas said.
“Ten complaints a year for our population rate (56,500) is, in my experience, low,” he said. “In Richmond (California, where Freitas served as a police officer for nearly 30 years before coming to Kaua’i), we averaged 125 to 140 complaints a year with a population of 90,000.”
Freitas said there are multiple options when filing a complaint against a police officer on Kaua’i.
“The procedure is to have your complaint notarized and contact the chief’s office, the Police Commission or both. On a report filed with the department, I get the report on the incident (from an internal investigation) and it is either sustained or unstained. If it is sustained, I make a disciplinary recommendation,” Freitas explained.
A complaint filed with the Police Commission follows a similar path, although the commission is empowered to hire a private investigator to look into the alleged police malefaction.
Whatever happens to the officer in his complaint probably won’t totally satisfy the Puhi complainant.
“This officer is a disgrace to the uniform he wears (and) to the badge that hangs on his chest,” the complainant stated.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net
