Call goes out for portable police radios

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