Off the News: Letting go of surgeon general case

On balance, it’s hard to argue with the city prosecutor’s decision to drop the case against U.S. Surgeon Gen. Jerome Adams for allegedly violating an Oahu emergency order by being in a park last August.

Adams was here on a major public health mission: bringing some 90,000 COVID-19 test kits to get folks surge-tested during a coronavirus spike. But while here one morning, Adams and an aide were cited at Kualoa Regional Park when they stopped for some photos walking back from the ocean to their car. At the time, an emergency order banned loitering at beaches to prevent social gathering.

The prosecutor’s motion to dismiss was approved Tuesday in Circuit Court. Just so. Let’s have law enforcement go after real threats to public safety.