Letters to the Editor: September 26, 2021

A different epidemic

Bummer for the guy who had his hydraulic hammer stolen (August WHT).

On Aug. 3, my husband’s truck was stolen from our home in Keauhou with all his tools and work equipment. The thieves returned the next night and took my car. A week later, a truck was stolen two blocks away. “Not an anomaly” according to the social media group Big Island Thieves and residents who know that a car theft ring is working out of Hawaiian Ocean View Estates — exactly where my husband’s car has been reported being driven around with impunity. One local politician called the recent thievery “an epidemic.”

The police were contacted by willing witnesses telling them exactly where our truck was located and who was driving it. One is a man recently arrested for petty neighborhood theft — released with supervision a week later.

Why is this thievery happening so blatantly but apparently off the radar of law enforcement? As kind as they’ve been, the police seem disinterested in recovering our cars, yet their loss has changed our lives. We’ve been on edge and on our own except for the outpouring of support from friends and community. We’ve been tracking and looking for our cars, knowing that they’re being driven by crooks. We’ve put ourselves at risk searching for vehicles taken by people whose lives are built around crime, jail time, repeat. This shouldn’t be our job, yet everyone we know who’s found their stolen cars did so on their own.

You never think it’ll happen to you until it does. These thieves break into the house first to get the keys, so put them in a safe place. If you’re a victim, don’t think insurance is going to make everything right. If your car is older, no matter how nice it was and how impossible or expensive it is to replace, you’re going to face a daunting, if not hopeless, automobile market with little funding.

Maybe if the mayor would set up a special crime unit to focus on and stop this continuing theft as was successfully done for East Hawaii several years ago, this cycle could be broken. Please email him at Mitch.Roth@hawaiicounty.gov and ask him to do the same.

Janice Palma-Glennie

Kailua-Kona

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