A handful of Occupy Honolulu protesters set up camp overnight at Honolulu Police Department headquarters Wednesday, asserting that city workers improperly seized their items.
They left Thursday morning and no one was arrested.
The protest was peaceful. Just after the police headquarters opened at 7:45 a.m. Thursday, a single protester sat with a sign in front of the metal detector at the entrance to the main police station.
Another protester waved to motorists passing by on South Beretania Street at a tent erected on the sidewalk in front of the police station.
A protester claimed he was assaulted by a police officer who pushed him aside at the entrance at about 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Andrew W. Smith, 28, said he was seated in the walkway to a metal detector when an officer shoved him while walking by, causing him to hit his head on the metal detector.
Smith said another officer urged the first officer to go inside the building. Police called an ambulance, and medical personnel examined Smith, who was unhurt.
Police opened a third-degree assault case against the officer.
Smith said some people decided to protest outside the police station beginning at about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday after city officials took their belongings from the Occupy gathering at Ward Avenue and South Beretania Street.
He said city workers had tagged the campers’ items at about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, giving the owners of the items 24 hours to remove them. The protesters carried away their items before the 24-hour deadline Wednesday and replaced them with untagged items in the presence of a police supervisor and city housing coordinator Trish Morikawa, Smith said.
City workers took the items anyway, Smith said. Protesters lost nine tents, bedding and other personal items.
As it has in the past, the city denies removing untagged items.
"When they (city crews) go back to the different locations that they previously enforced with the stored property ordinance … they are very mindful and careful to document and remove only the items that have been tagged," city spokeswoman Louise Kim McCoy said.
McCoy said crews issued removal notices at Thomas Square on Monday and Tuesday, and returned Wednesday to collect the tagged items.
"This is not just (about) Thomas Square," she said. "To be more efficient with the city time and city labor, they go back to different locations each time they go out and enforce the stored property ordinance."
Smith said he filed a theft case with police.
"I will not leave this building until Trish Morikawa and Westley Chun" — director of the city Department of Facility Maintenance — "are arrested for theft," Smith said Wednesday evening.
He filed a second report with police Thursday morning because he was told the previous paperwork had been lost.
Police asked for 48 hours to investigate the incident, and he obliged, he said.
"They made a reasonable request; I didn’t think that it shouldn’t be honored, so I went ahead and left," Smith said. "I want this done right because I want those charges to stick."
About five protesters were in the entrance to the station at about 10 p.m. Wednesday.
One protester, Christopher Smith, 40, who is also a member of the Makiki Neighborhood Board and is a brother of Andrew Smith, said a police supervisor watched as the protesters removed their items from the park Wednesday afternoon.
"He (the police sergeant) even admitted that he watched us remove the items, place them in a car, and that those items that were there were not part of what was actually tagged," Smith said.
Andrew Smith said he is confident that theft charges will be filed, and said he will be back to protest in front of the department if they are not.
"We’ve never had such clear-cut evidence," he said. "They are not going to sweep this under the rug this time."
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Star-Advertiser reporters Gregg K. Kakesako, Rob Shikina and Sarah Zoellick contributed to this report.
