• Crime information Crime information It appears that a $15,000 reward ferreted out information good enough to lead to the arrest of a suspect in recent burglaries. While the Kaua‘i Police Department is praising the putting up of the reward
• Crime information
Crime information
It appears that a $15,000 reward ferreted out information good enough to lead to the arrest of a suspect in recent burglaries.
While the Kaua‘i Police Department is praising the putting up of the reward money, there is more to this story.
Without the sizable reward being made public, this arrest might not have happened.
The posting of the reward by a homeowner from the Po‘ipu area definitely drove the arrest, with information being provided due to the lure of a financial payoff.
The ongoing list of crimes compiled by Tom Finnegan, The Garden Island’s police reporter, in the newspaper’s Police Blotter section, shows there are a lot of cases out there.
The number solved would be higher if rewards were offered in each case, which is of course improbable, if not impossible.
Getting information out across the island about crimes and suspects wanted for those crimes usually only happens in high-profile cases like murders or kidnappings.
Why such information isn’t distributed by the Kaua‘i Police Department might be because of confidentiality, or so a criminal isn’t tipped off to surveillance.
However, posting photos and other information about suspects could work in more cases if the police distributed this information more widely.
The Kaua‘i Chamber of Commerce’s work with the Kaua‘i Police Department on their Crime Stoppers program is a good example of how this might work.
The Garden Island publishes photos and other information on criminal suspects being sought when county officials release such information.
As the only locally published daily print media on Kaua‘i we feel a responsibility to both protect island residents while helping the Kaua‘i Police Department, or other law-enforcement agencies, in apprehending criminals.
But the fact also remains that the offering of a reward shouldn’t in and of itself be the main contributing factor to the solving of a crime.
The police do a fair job of investigating and solving serious crimes, and in this case got a welcome assist from a part-time resident fed up with crime in his neighborhood and in his home.
There is an ongoing rise in crime on Kaua‘i due in great part to the crystal methamphetamine, or “ice,” epidemic that’s hit the island and the rest of Hawai‘i.
This is making the apprehension of suspects wanted for robbery and other crimes with a seriousness lower than murder or kidnapping important to protecting the lives of our residents and visitors.
While publicity about serious crimes is a negative to attracting visitors to Kaua‘i, capturing and jailing criminals is in the long term a better deterrent than keeping quiet about crime.
It is our pledge to our readers to continue to report on crimes, trends, court cases, sentencings, the ongoing war on drugs, and other crime stories of importance to our readers.
