HONOLULU (KHON2) — Dozens turned up on Tuesday evening to discuss crime in West Oahu. The main topic of discussion: youth crime.
“Many people have been concerned about the age of people that have been involved in violent crimes in the community,” said Council Member Andria Tupola.
Nanakuli neighborhood board member and retired police officer, Paul Aio, said youth crime is one of the main reasons he was attending the meeting.
“What we’re having is a monstrous monstrous figures of crimes being committed by juveniles,” Aio said. “And on the west side, most of the suspects that have been arrested in shootings are juveniles.”
According to HPD Maj. Gail Beckley, the District 8 commander, two of the three recent shootings on the west side involved young men.
“One was seventeen and one was in his early twenties,” she explained.>
Beckley said the violent behavior starts from a very young age, according to stats she pulled from West Side high schools and middle schools.
“Just from January to May, we had over 500 calls of service to the different schools,” Beckley said. “Mind you, some of them are long calls, somebody trespassing on the property, maybe graffiti, whatever, but a lot of them that were committed were involving assaults, threats, harassments and thefts, usually bicycles.”
Aio said he wants to see school resource officers on school campuses.
“If you can prevent the crime on the juvenile level before they get to be adults by teaching them, mentoring them, educating them, and actually being friends with them on the campus, they will have a different perspective of us as police officers,” Aio explained.
Rep. Diamond Garcia, who represents portions of Ewa, said the legislature did try to add school resource officers to our schools but it was shot down.
“The largest push-back was from the teachers union. And they are basically saying that they don’t want schools to become prisons. And so that’s their viewpoint,” he said. “On that I disagree. I think school resource officers would be a good thing for our schools to show our kids that police officers aren’t the enemy. They’re good people in our community.”
Tupola said they are hoping to put a school resource officer in Nanakuli High School as a pilot program. She said it’s a proactive way to address issues and prevent problems on campuses.
Deputy Prosecutor Tiffany Kaeo said the prosecutor’s office is also taking preemptive action.
“We are full of attorneys and the juvenile team who are focused on reducing that school-to-prison pipeline,” Kaeo explained. “It’s really important that we start early to engage these youngsters so that we can let them know that there is a life outside of crime.”