On Jan. 10, I was driving up Alli Drive by Poncho and Lefty’s restaurant when a police officer blatantly jaywalked basically right in front of my car while he was within 15 feet of a visible crosswalk, so when he crossed the street I rolled down my window and simply said, “an officer jaywalking” in a surprised and somewhat disappointed tone.
He immediately struck a tough guy posture and defensively yelled,“What are you gonna do about it?!” There were plenty of tourists and people on the street who witnessed this sad display.
I slowly kept moving along. He must’ve got in his police vehicle within seconds because he intentionally caught me at the light by Quinn’s less than two minutes later. He angrily gestured for me to roll down my window from the turn lane where he had pulled up next to my car, obviously upset that I would question why he was clearly breaking the law.
I basically stated that all I said was, “officer jaywalking,” which is exactly what I saw. He then yelled at me, “I want you to pull over right now” then made an illegal lane change in the intersection to follow me up by The Club gym in Kona, the first safe spot to pull over.
By this time another cop car was there as backup. Then he got out of his car and began to lecture me on how he was in the middle of an investigation and he doesn’t have to follow any laws while he’s in the middle of an investigation. So in my mind, the investigation was over because he obviously had plenty of time to chase me down to lecture me on why he is above the law and the rest of the world is not.
Was his argument that using the crosswalk would have hampered his investigation? I would understand him having to jaywalk if precious seconds were required to save a life or prevent a crime but he was just simply heading back to his police vehicle or there is no way he would have been able to catch up to me at the light as fast as he did.
In this case, obviously he was either too lazy to make some extra steps to use the crosswalk or felt he’s too above the law, or maybe both. Not a very good example for the kids and tourists down there. He had plenty of time to use the crosswalk, it would’ve wasted less time than to chase me down so he could justify to me why he shouldn’t have to use the crosswalk because he was in the middle of an investigation, which looked like basically him dealing with some of the local drunk homeless people on the side of the road by the Palace on Alii Drive.
Now I understand police have a very difficult and thankless job and I know that they have to deal with a lot of negativity and BS, and I am by no means anti-cop, I also know jaywalking is not exactly a capital crime, but I have seen on more than one occasion Kona police scolding and citing tourists and locals for jaywalking in that very spot!
But my concern is if a police officer is willing to be breaking a law right before my eyes, what are these kinds of cops doing behind closed doors when no one is watching? We already had a cop kill a bicyclist and leave him on the side of the road when no one was watching. So yeah, I politely called the cop out on it. Rather than him being professional (which has been my experience with Kona PD), he flew off the handle at me for calling him on jaywalking. His reaction was actually worse that the jaywalking itself. If I had reacted to him calling me out for jaywalking the way he reacted, I would have expected to be arrested. I would say this officer might need a psych evaluation to be carrying a firearm after his angry tirade or at the very least some anger management sessions with a good shrink.
Something every investigating cop knows is when a person hasn’t done anything wrong, they don’t feel the need to angrily justify themselves, this cop could have ignored my comment just as easily as chasing me down and pulling me over because I exercised my freedom of speech, which I believe is still legal in this country, correct?
The high Hawaii income tax I pay, pays his salary. I’d like to think that a cop, who took an oath to uphold the law, actually respects the law and does his best to follow it personally. Maybe that’s an old-fashioned notion. I don’t feel the need to give his name or his badge number even though he felt compelled to yell it at me, without me asking for it, as he was getting back in his vehicle. He knows who he is.
Rick Linnemeyer is a resident of Kailua-Kona.
