Officer charged with third-degree assault

HILO — Police said Monday they don’t know why a South Hilo patrol officer allegedly kicked and struck a juvenile boy, described as a runaway, early Friday morning at the Salvation Army Interim Home in Hilo.

Daniel Kuwabara, a 10-year veteran of the Hawaii Police Department, is charged with third-degree assault, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.

Kuwabara, who turned himself in Saturday evening and was later released from custody after posting $500 bail, was placed on unpaid administrative leave by the department pending the outcome of an internal investigation by the Office of Professional Standards, the department’s internal affairs unit.

The internal investigation is separate from and independent of the criminal investigation conducted by the Criminal Investigations Section.

Staff at the interim home called police after the boy, who was reported as a runaway, returned to the interim home, police said. Staff again called police later in the day to allege Kuwabara, while talking to the boy, kicked him in the leg and then struck the boy on the side of the head with his hand.

“As far as what his motivation was, we don’t know,” said Capt. Randall Medeiros, commander of the Hilo Criminal Investigation Division. “As far as any previous contact (with the alleged victim), there was at least one prior contact.”

Kuwabara allegedly left the interim home after the encounter with the purported runaway. The juvenile reportedly ran away again later in the day while being taken to school, but later returned to the home. He didn’t require medical attention.

Medeiros, who is in charge of the Criminal Investigations, Vice and Juvenile Aid sections, explained police procedure when a juvenile reported as a runaway is located.

“Anytime a runaway report is made, whenever the child is located, returns, whatever the case may be … as a matter of course, there is an arrest that is made,” Medeiros said. “If the minor is found in public, then we’ll physically take him into custody, bring him back to the station … or we may take him straight home or to the interim home. But in a case like this, where the child returns to the interim home, the technical arrest would be made at the interim home and the minor would not be physically taken away from the interim home back to the station for processing.”

Medeiros said the officer’s role at that point is to determine if the juvenile is the same one who was reported as a runaway.

“The minor may have to go to Family Court at some point to address the runaway issues,” he said.

Medeiros said privacy concerns don’t allow him to release the age of the juvenile or if the boy is a ward of the state. He said some juveniles are placed in the interim home because they are in the Family Court system, others because they are deemed “incorrigible” and beyond parental control.

Kuwabara is scheduled to make his initial court appearance at 1:30 p.m. May 29 in Hilo District Court.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the police nonemergency line at 935-3311 or Crime Stoppers at 961-8300.

Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.