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I totally agree with Kenneth Lawson’s comments in his well-written commentary (“Request DOJ probe of HPD use-of-force policies, practices,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, April 26).
No government agency, especially the Honolulu Police Department, should be allowed by law to investigate itself with no further independent investigation required. That leads to bribery, corruption, citizen mistrust of government, a waste of taxpayer funds on legal fees (as in the Louis Kealoha case), and expensive wrongful-death lawsuits that can never fully compensate victims’ families.
An independent investigation of the case is needed and an audit of the policies followed, especially when there is evidence that unarmed citizens were killed or when additional evidence like body camera footage is either being withheld or edited.
Surely it must be possible for highly trained law enforcement professionals to remove an immediate threat without outright killing the suspect. Excessive violence only breeds further violence, and Honolulu needs and deserves better.
Ellen Koppenheffer
Moanalua Valley
Don’t stereotype all police as ‘bad apples’
With all the anti-police rhetoric going on around the country, one must ask if this is truly a consensus of American feelings.
I, for one, am tired of the media sensationalizing allegations of police misconduct. Yes, like everywhere else, there may be some “bad apples” in our police forces. But we shouldn’t stereotype a few bad apples as representative of the entire police department.
I cannot believe there are folks pushing to cut police budgets, disarm them, or even do away with their police forces. Are they insane? Can you imagine what life would be without our police? It would be like living the movie, “The Purge.”
I respectfully ask all of you out there — the silent majority — to voice your support for our police. For starters, let your elected officials know how you feel, and the next time you see an HPD officer, say, “Thank you.”
Ted W. Hashimoto
Mililani
Car giveaway could encourage vaccinations
Every day we hear about vaccine hesitancy threatening Hawaii’s goal of achieving herd immunity.
The quickest way to achieve herd immunity would be to offer those not yet vaccinated a real incentive. How about a car giveaway like the Oahu Interscholastic Association (OIA) does at the annual football championship game at Aloha Stadium?
Everyone who gets vaccinated gets a chance to win a new car. It would be a lot cheaper than relying on our current public relations efforts. In the end, we’d all be safer, life would return to normal, and someone would be the winner of a new car!
Stephen Molnar
Kailua
Are we predisposed to kill one another?
Whenever there is another mass murder in the U.S., many Americans say they don’t understand why we lead the world in multiple homicides. Others claim that inadequate treatment for those with serious mental health issues is to blame. Sometimes, however, Occam’s Razor may apply.
If the dominant creatures on another planet had weapons that could kill multitudes of their fellow inhabitants within minutes, would we think they are peaceful? Would we think they are civilized? Would the number and lethality of weapons they have give us no clue as to their predisposition to kill one another?
All life needs to have adequate mechanisms to protect itself or it will become extinct.
We have to ask ourselves: Is our desire to have weapons that can kill scores of people within minutes because of a reasonable, rational and civilized need to protect ourselves? Or is it for a more subliminal reason?
Robert Griffon
Makiki
Don’t allow universities to discriminate racially
No one disagrees with the intent of Hawaii U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono’s Asian hate crimes bill (“Senate OKs bill to fight hate crimes against Asian Americans,” Star-Advertiser, April 22). But one question: Why is discrimination against Asian American students by elite universities not included in the bill?
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz proposed an amendment to punish universities that discriminate against Asian American students, but it was defeated by Democratic senators.
Why? Discrimination against Asian American students in higher education should not be tolerated.
Jim McDiarmid
Mililani
Failures in Afghanistan show folly of war there
The war in Afghanistan has to be the dumbest, if not the stupidest, war we have ever engaged in, right after the Vietnam War, which we had already lost — royally (“Leaving Afghanistan,” Star-Advertiser, Insight, April 25).
The president obviously had been talked into it by the military. He should instead have listened to a historian, who would have told him that the powerful British Empire, covering half the world (“the sun never sets on it”) was kicked out twice in the 19th century. Twice!
Soviet Russia, the second-most powerful country, gave up after having flown out 15,000 body bags of dead soldiers.
And after 20 years of uselessly blowing billions of dollars and killing how many soldiers, we are still at it — with no end in sight.
Blessings and more power to our president to bring this pathetic spectacle to an end.
Stop it. Get ’em out.
Gerhard C. Hamm
Nuuanu
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