• Understand what police officers do • Scale back the Navy • Change yourself first Understand what police officers do While I did not read Juan Wilson’s entire commentary about the Kauai Police Department, the part about our mission statement
• Understand what police officers do
• Scale back the Navy
• Change yourself first
Understand what police officers do
While I did not read Juan Wilson’s entire commentary about the Kauai Police Department, the part about our mission statement did catch my eye (“Toward a Kaua‘i police mission statement,” Island Breath, May 24).
Perhaps this is as good a time as any to mention that we have revised our mission statement for the exact reasons that Wilson mentioned.
We included the aloha spirit and pono as our guiding principles. It was months in the making and was unveiled to our employees only this past Wednesday.
Input was gathered from all levels of the department, both sworn and civilian. We will be making a public announcement shortly.
The reason I’m responding to Wilson’s commentary is I want the public to know that the credit for our new mission statement goes to each and every employee at KPD because they saw the need months ago to be more in alignment with our community values. We believe in respect, integrity and professionalism.
But unfortunately, it makes some individuals uneasy, because they just cannot bring themselves to believe that we truly care for our community and that we need a variety of verbal tools and intermediate weapons to do our job.
Some people have suggested we do away with all of our weapons. Let’s see what would happen if we left our weapons in the station house.
If a victim — perhaps your wife, sister, mother, son or daughter — were getting the snot kicked out of them by someone drunk or under the influence of drugs, we could try to talk them down.
If that fails, then perhaps I could have my officers hold hands and sing a hymn. Maybe that would calm him down, then we could politely ask him to comply by placing his hands behind his back as we place him under arrest. If that fails, then we’ll just wait till he gets tired. Or better yet, I could contact one of our community experts who deplore the use of any type of weapon and ask him to resolve the situation.
I’m really not trying to be funny.
The point of the matter is that many of our critics have never had to deal with the variety of issues that we have to deal with on a daily basis.
They have never had to wrestle or fight for their lives because someone had so much pent up rage that they wanted to kill someone, anyone. My officers are not paid to get hurt. My officers are paid to preserve the peace.
I just wish some of our naysayers could understand what our job entails and not let their biases get in the way of knowing the truth.
Darryl Perry, police chief
Kaua‘i Police Department
Scale back the Navy
After receiving the EIS for the Hawaii Range Complex from the department of the Navy, I think the general public should be able to call into question the relevance of the statement contained in ES1.2.1. “Why the Navy Trains? The U.S. Military is maintained to ensure the freedom and safety of all Americans both at home and abroad. In order to do so, title 10 of the U.S.C. requires the navy to ‘maintain, train, and equip combat-ready naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas.’”
With the current energy crisis facing the U.S. and the globe, is maintaining the massive fuel consuming force of the Navy really in the nation’s best interest?
How much fuel does an aircraft carrier use, or a fighter jet? The current administration has drilled it into America’s collective conscience that al-Qaida is the biggest threat to America. al-Qaida does not have ships and submarines that are going to invade America. In fact, of the nations that do have these weapons, how many of them are our enemies? Of those enemies how many of them could actually afford to raise the money needed to invade us with cost of fuel alone? I think most of these nations are going to have a hard enough time just feeding their own people, much less invading America. The biggest threat to America is our entire society breaking down because we used up all the oil before we figured out alternative energy sources. I think the Navy and other military branches should scale back war training and focus resources on relief work and humanitarian missions that are most likely going to increase as the energy, food, climate, pollution and economic crises continue. When a navy ship pulls into an area devastated by a tsunami, or an earthquake, or a cyclone those are the days that I am actually proud to be an American.
Jason Nichols
Koloa
Change yourself first
I’m sick and tired of people (including myself) whining and moaning about government failing to do this or that when it is we the citizenry who are actually the problem. We keep electing the same old people to do the same old nothing. This isn’t the high school prom you know.
Tired of the high price of gas? Then why are many of you still driving around in gas guzzling big trucks and SUVs? Are you willing to ride a bike, take the bus or car pool? No?
Then you are part of the problem. By the way, 500 million folks in the EU and gas is about $7 to $8 dollars a gallon. You folks are getting off cheap.
Tired of the high price of food? Then (if you have one) dig up your lawn and grow a garden. Change your diet. It takes 3 pounds of grain on average to raise one pound of meat. So don’t tell me corn alcohol is causing food shortages. The U.S. exported more corn last year than five years ago.
Speaking of alcohol, you will have fuel alternatives when you demand them and refuse to buy cars without flex-fuel capability. For a relatively small conversion cost one can run an internal combustion engine on pure alcohol. More octane and less pollution. These cars are already sold in Brazil. Why? The people won’t buy anything else. Alcohol solves the oil issues immediately and at low cost as it can be made from almost anything and anywhere with low set up costs. No more dependency on Mideast oil. Make a little brew while you’re at it.
Stop buying and drinking water in plastic bottles. It takes 3 liters of oil to make a 1 liter plastic bottle. Come on folks, Kaua‘i water is OK to drink and with a good filter it’s better than this plastic nonsense.
There are many things you can do to survive and thrive in the coming inflation. Eat less, exercise more. Stop buying things you don’t really need. Do you need that flat screen TV or the videogame? How about all those sodas with all that corn syrup? Do you like having diabetes?
Ultimately, you the consumers are calling the shots. When you refuse to buy or demand a different product, the marketplace will respond.
Americans are the most spoiled people on the planet. Change yourself first and you will change the world.
Michael Wells
Kapa‘a
