McBryde Sugar Co.’s Camp Eleven, now long since vanished, was located atop the western edge of Lawai Gulch above Lawai Bay and alongside the main plantation road about 3/4 of a mile uphill from the bridge that crosses Lawai Stream
McBryde Sugar Co.’s Camp Eleven, now long since vanished, was located atop the western edge of Lawai Gulch above Lawai Bay and alongside the main plantation road about 3/4 of a mile uphill from the bridge that crosses Lawai Stream just north of Pump 6.
On Sunday morning, February 18, 1945, Kaua‘i police raided a good-sized, illegal cockfight taking place at Camp Eleven that sent most of the gamblers fleeing immediately down the nearby high bluff that drops steeply into Lawai Gulch.
In no time, the hillside was practically covered with gamblers on the run, leaping and bounding toward the safety of the sheltering vegetation at the bottom of the gulch.
The younger gamblers seemed to have little trouble making their escapes, but their older, less agile compatriots could not keep up their pace and soon found themselves unintentionally tumbling, rolling and flip-flopping into the gulch.
A number of the older fellows rounded-up by police were so badly hurt that they required first aid before being arrested. In fact, there were so many injuries that police adopted a novel way of identifying captured suspects. They’d make a suspect walk past them, and if the man limped, he was arrested.
Teodoro S. of Kapa‘a, for instance, forfeited $200 in bail and suffered two sprained ankles and black-and-blues. Adriano C. of Makaweli was cut up pretty badly and forfeited $150, and Braulio B. of Niumalu could sit only painfully while forfeiting $100.
The net result of the raid was a realization of $1,650 for the County of Kaua‘i in forfeited bail, an Ele‘ele Dispensary crowded on that Sunday afternoon with dispensary personnel mending sprains, bruises and contusions, and poor turnout for work at McBryde Sugar Co. on the following Monday.
