News (Media Awareness Project) - US HI: Chasing Smoke: Part Four-Innocent Say They Endure Intrusions |
| Title: | US HI: Chasing Smoke: Part Four-Innocent Say They Endure Intrusions |
| Published On: | 2000-04-05 |
| Source: | Honolulu Advertiser (HI) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-09-04 22:45:07 |
INNOCENT SAY THEY ENDURE INTRUSIONS
PUNA PALISADES, Hawaii--Welcome to suburban America, Puna-style.
Judith Mura hacks away at the foliage choking her property, the land on
which she has built a house for herself and her 5-year-old daughter, Jordan.
Mura cleared her half-acre lot of lava boulders, which she lifted one by one
to form a rock wall 6 feet high. She even built Jordan a playhouse, which
she painted white and decorated with little-girl ruffles and trim.
Rock by rock, nail by nail, the 46-year-old single mother is creating a life
for herself and her daughter out of the rough-but-quiet Puna landscape.
Then the drug enforcement helicopters come, searching for marijuana plants.
Sometimes they fly 12 feet over her house, Mura said, so low they shake the
roof and walls. Sometimes the rattling and noise gives Jordan nightmares for
a week.
Mura isnt involved in Hawaiis pakalolo industry, but the statewide Counter
Cannabis Field Operation nevertheless has drawn her in.
I dont smoke pot, and I dont care about pot whatsoever, she said. Im
not pro-hemp or pro-marijuana. I have nothing to do with marijuana, and yet
this is a war involving me. These helicopters come right in my face.
When Operation Green Harvest began in 1976 12 years before Mura moved to
Puna the area was so open that the Hawaii Army National Guards Huey
helicopters could land in the middle of almost any road and not bother
anyone.
When we first started with the Hueys, there was nobody out there, said Big
Island police Capt. Dale Fergerstrom, who started with Operation Green
Harvest as a foot patrolman. There were huge tracts of no houses.
Residents complain
In the past 20 years, people have poured into Puna, attracted by cheap,
plentiful land. They have more than doubled Punas population to more than
27,000 people.
They began complaining about the noise and intrusion of helicopters. Police
imposed their own minimum flying altitude of 500 feet, except to pick up and
drop off officers to cut down marijuana plants.
Some residents still arent happy.
In 1997 and 1998, Big Island police received 45 complaints about their
marijuana eradication operation. Eighteen were over helicopter noise, and 17
concerned low-altitude flights.
Sometimes people confuse fire department, air ambulance or tour helicopters
for police and National Guard helicopters, said Lt. Henry Tavares. He is in
charge of marijuana eradication for the eastern half of the Big Island.
Tavares tries to remind residents how the war on marijuana is making their
lives better.
He illustrates his conversations with the crude devices police have found
spring-loaded animal traps, fishing line strung with hooks, and shotgun
shells and bullets that can be triggered by trip wire.
The only person injured in the past 24 years was a marijuana grower in a
Puna papaya field. He blew off his hand while loading a booby trap designed
to fire a shotgun shell. But any child, hiker or family pet could trigger
the booby traps, Tavares said.
He asks longtime residents to remember the 1970s and 1980s, when telephone
and power workers were fired upon, and innocent people were threatened by
growers.
Were getting rid of booby traps, getting rid of the risk of kids running
into them, Tavares said. We explain that were making their neighborhoods
a safer place.
Keeping promises
Rene Siracusa is hardly anti-cop, as she puts it. As president of the Puna
Outdoor Circle, she has landscaped the front of the Pahoa police substation
and helped with community policing operations.
When Siracusa complained to the Big Island police about the helicopter
flights, They said they wouldnt fly over my house if I promised never to
grow marijuana, she said. To this day, Ive kept that promise, but they
havent kept theirs.
There have been days when Siracusa watched the sky above her 9-acre Kaohe
Homesteads property in Puna and logged eight helicopter flights. They have
so terrified Siracusas animals that three of them died while trying to get
away, Siracusa said.
Sir Loin, Siracusas year-old, 500-pound bull, panicked and kicked her in
the hip in 1985 while a police helicopter hovered overhead, she said. Three
years ago, Siracusa said, police helicopters frightened Sir Loin again. He
broke free and ran into the nearby forest trailing 50 feet of rope, which
got tangled in the woods and strangled him.
He was normally a very placid animal, but the helicopters harassed him,
Siracusa said.
A 9-month-old goat was so terrified by helicopters that she ran in circles
around a clump of grass until there was no slack in the rope and she
strangled herself. A 7-month-old goat frightened by helicopters broke her
neck, Siracusa said.
In 1989, when Siracusa was 50 years old, a police helicopter flew so low
that I hit the dirt and ended up breaking my wrist.
I cant help getting angry, said Siracusa, now 61. Im a law-abiding
citizen, and it hasnt done me any good. Theyre creating what feels like a
war zone, and innocent people and animals get hurt.
I am outraged
Gisella Coleman was visiting a neighbor in March 1997 when five police cars
came bouncing down the pitted and unpaved road that runs in front of her
home in Orchidland Estates, a rural Puna subdivision. Coleman followed the
cars as they drove up to her house and was surprised when police served her
with a search warrant.
The person in charge was really disappointed, said Coleman, a 62-year-old
retiree. I was not the kind of person he expected. They really wanted to
find a pot grower.
The officers said a vice detective flying in a marijuana eradication
helicopter, using infrared surveillance equipment, had spotted 2-foot-tall
marijuana plants growing on her property.
Coleman swears she has never seen marijuana in her life, let alone grown it
or smoked it. Shes from Germany and cant say the word marijuana without
it coming out merry-ahna.
They came here and scared me, Coleman said. I used to believe that if I
did not grow marijuana I had nothing to worry about. But I have learned that
even if I dont know what a marijuana plant looks like I have plenty to
fear. ... I am outraged that the police want my tax dollars to bully me.
The officers had Coleman wait in the rain while they searched her 3 acres of
land and went through the two houses on it.
They came inside with mud on their boots and dirtied my carpets, she said.
They opened the closets. They opened the drawers. They went through all of
my things.
After 10 or 15 minutes, the officers said they didnt find any marijuana.
Coleman filed a claim against the county and won $1,500. All of it went to
pay her attorney fees, she said.
To this day, Big Island police insist they saw marijuana growing on her
property.
Were not saying she was growing it, but somebody had marijuana there, Lt.
Tavares said.
Coleman and her husband, Fred, moved to Puna from Europe in 1990 because
they wanted to retire in a peaceful community that they had heard was
paradise.
We have lived in police states, and we didnt want to retire in one,
Coleman said.
After Big Island vice officers searched her house, Coleman had trouble
sleeping for weeks. And she became more aware of the complaints over the
Counter Cannabis Field Operation going on around her.
This whole thing made me open my eyes, she said. This is not paradise.
This is not even a free country. Its a war zone.
PUNA PALISADES, Hawaii--Welcome to suburban America, Puna-style.
Judith Mura hacks away at the foliage choking her property, the land on
which she has built a house for herself and her 5-year-old daughter, Jordan.
Mura cleared her half-acre lot of lava boulders, which she lifted one by one
to form a rock wall 6 feet high. She even built Jordan a playhouse, which
she painted white and decorated with little-girl ruffles and trim.
Rock by rock, nail by nail, the 46-year-old single mother is creating a life
for herself and her daughter out of the rough-but-quiet Puna landscape.
Then the drug enforcement helicopters come, searching for marijuana plants.
Sometimes they fly 12 feet over her house, Mura said, so low they shake the
roof and walls. Sometimes the rattling and noise gives Jordan nightmares for
a week.
Mura isnt involved in Hawaiis pakalolo industry, but the statewide Counter
Cannabis Field Operation nevertheless has drawn her in.
I dont smoke pot, and I dont care about pot whatsoever, she said. Im
not pro-hemp or pro-marijuana. I have nothing to do with marijuana, and yet
this is a war involving me. These helicopters come right in my face.
When Operation Green Harvest began in 1976 12 years before Mura moved to
Puna the area was so open that the Hawaii Army National Guards Huey
helicopters could land in the middle of almost any road and not bother
anyone.
When we first started with the Hueys, there was nobody out there, said Big
Island police Capt. Dale Fergerstrom, who started with Operation Green
Harvest as a foot patrolman. There were huge tracts of no houses.
Residents complain
In the past 20 years, people have poured into Puna, attracted by cheap,
plentiful land. They have more than doubled Punas population to more than
27,000 people.
They began complaining about the noise and intrusion of helicopters. Police
imposed their own minimum flying altitude of 500 feet, except to pick up and
drop off officers to cut down marijuana plants.
Some residents still arent happy.
In 1997 and 1998, Big Island police received 45 complaints about their
marijuana eradication operation. Eighteen were over helicopter noise, and 17
concerned low-altitude flights.
Sometimes people confuse fire department, air ambulance or tour helicopters
for police and National Guard helicopters, said Lt. Henry Tavares. He is in
charge of marijuana eradication for the eastern half of the Big Island.
Tavares tries to remind residents how the war on marijuana is making their
lives better.
He illustrates his conversations with the crude devices police have found
spring-loaded animal traps, fishing line strung with hooks, and shotgun
shells and bullets that can be triggered by trip wire.
The only person injured in the past 24 years was a marijuana grower in a
Puna papaya field. He blew off his hand while loading a booby trap designed
to fire a shotgun shell. But any child, hiker or family pet could trigger
the booby traps, Tavares said.
He asks longtime residents to remember the 1970s and 1980s, when telephone
and power workers were fired upon, and innocent people were threatened by
growers.
Were getting rid of booby traps, getting rid of the risk of kids running
into them, Tavares said. We explain that were making their neighborhoods
a safer place.
Keeping promises
Rene Siracusa is hardly anti-cop, as she puts it. As president of the Puna
Outdoor Circle, she has landscaped the front of the Pahoa police substation
and helped with community policing operations.
When Siracusa complained to the Big Island police about the helicopter
flights, They said they wouldnt fly over my house if I promised never to
grow marijuana, she said. To this day, Ive kept that promise, but they
havent kept theirs.
There have been days when Siracusa watched the sky above her 9-acre Kaohe
Homesteads property in Puna and logged eight helicopter flights. They have
so terrified Siracusas animals that three of them died while trying to get
away, Siracusa said.
Sir Loin, Siracusas year-old, 500-pound bull, panicked and kicked her in
the hip in 1985 while a police helicopter hovered overhead, she said. Three
years ago, Siracusa said, police helicopters frightened Sir Loin again. He
broke free and ran into the nearby forest trailing 50 feet of rope, which
got tangled in the woods and strangled him.
He was normally a very placid animal, but the helicopters harassed him,
Siracusa said.
A 9-month-old goat was so terrified by helicopters that she ran in circles
around a clump of grass until there was no slack in the rope and she
strangled herself. A 7-month-old goat frightened by helicopters broke her
neck, Siracusa said.
In 1989, when Siracusa was 50 years old, a police helicopter flew so low
that I hit the dirt and ended up breaking my wrist.
I cant help getting angry, said Siracusa, now 61. Im a law-abiding
citizen, and it hasnt done me any good. Theyre creating what feels like a
war zone, and innocent people and animals get hurt.
I am outraged
Gisella Coleman was visiting a neighbor in March 1997 when five police cars
came bouncing down the pitted and unpaved road that runs in front of her
home in Orchidland Estates, a rural Puna subdivision. Coleman followed the
cars as they drove up to her house and was surprised when police served her
with a search warrant.
The person in charge was really disappointed, said Coleman, a 62-year-old
retiree. I was not the kind of person he expected. They really wanted to
find a pot grower.
The officers said a vice detective flying in a marijuana eradication
helicopter, using infrared surveillance equipment, had spotted 2-foot-tall
marijuana plants growing on her property.
Coleman swears she has never seen marijuana in her life, let alone grown it
or smoked it. Shes from Germany and cant say the word marijuana without
it coming out merry-ahna.
They came here and scared me, Coleman said. I used to believe that if I
did not grow marijuana I had nothing to worry about. But I have learned that
even if I dont know what a marijuana plant looks like I have plenty to
fear. ... I am outraged that the police want my tax dollars to bully me.
The officers had Coleman wait in the rain while they searched her 3 acres of
land and went through the two houses on it.
They came inside with mud on their boots and dirtied my carpets, she said.
They opened the closets. They opened the drawers. They went through all of
my things.
After 10 or 15 minutes, the officers said they didnt find any marijuana.
Coleman filed a claim against the county and won $1,500. All of it went to
pay her attorney fees, she said.
To this day, Big Island police insist they saw marijuana growing on her
property.
Were not saying she was growing it, but somebody had marijuana there, Lt.
Tavares said.
Coleman and her husband, Fred, moved to Puna from Europe in 1990 because
they wanted to retire in a peaceful community that they had heard was
paradise.
We have lived in police states, and we didnt want to retire in one,
Coleman said.
After Big Island vice officers searched her house, Coleman had trouble
sleeping for weeks. And she became more aware of the complaints over the
Counter Cannabis Field Operation going on around her.
This whole thing made me open my eyes, she said. This is not paradise.
This is not even a free country. Its a war zone.
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