LAB CHANGES MAY ASSIST IN ICE BATTLE

The Hawaii County Police Department's Ice Task Force and some new drug -
testing equipment for the crime lab should make it faster for police to get
drug dealers off the streets, Chief Lawrence Mahuna said Tuesday.

The chief knows firsthand the frustrations of living near drug dealers. Several
months ago neighbors sold ice, or crystal methamphetamine, from a house near
his Waimea home.

"They stole my toilet. They stole my tires off my truck," Mahuna said. "It
scared the bejesus out of everybody in my neighborhood ... It really affected
the quality of life in that neighborhood."

It took police four months to shut the house down. Now with an Ice Task Force
coming on board at the beginning of September, and new drug - testing equipment
on its way, Mahuna estimates that a similar case would take three to four weeks
from the time police receive a complaint.

The task force consists of two officers and a sergeant in Hilo and a similar
team in Kona that will work full time on methamphetamine cases. Mahuna said it
will allow police to respond more quickly to complaints from members of the
community and their children who suffer from the ice epidemic.

"This thing effects all socioeconomic categories and it's breaking down the
basic fiber of families and morals and ethics that these children are supposed
to have," Mahuna said.

The chief said it will take a two - pronged approach to clean up the problem:
both dismantling the dealers and stopping "social terrorism" caused by related
crimes in neighborhoods.

"I would venture to say that even these home invasions are linked to ice," he
said, referring to two recent Hilo robberies involving victims in their 80s and
90s.

Mahuna said police will go after users as well as dealers because ice use is
destroying families.

During a drug sweep in Ka'u last month, police didn't seize large quantities of
ice but the community was grateful for the raid, anyway, Mahuna said. One woman
thanked Mahuna for arresting her son because he had been stealing from her to
buy drugs. "People are at that point where they don't know what to do anymore,"
Mahuna said.

He said some people start using ice in their 40s or 50s because in the
beginning it gives them the energy to hold down more than one job. They don't
realize how quickly they can become addicted.

"I've talked to guys who said, 'Twice was all it took and I wanted to get
stoned for four to five days,'" Mahuna said. "Caring for their children is less
of a priority than getting stoned ... it becomes the No. 1 thing in their
lives."

Mahuna said a $350,000 grant U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D - Hawaii, sponsored
through Congress will allow police to update the drug testing equipment in the
department's crime lab. That will cut down the length of time it takes for
police to charge someone with a drug crime.

"Our equipment is so old that you actually have to run each arrest and have one
of the crime lab technicians monitor each test," Mahuna said. With the new
equipment, police can "batch - test" 15 - 20 cases at once.

Police are awaiting the drug testing equipment and other crime lab tools, which
Mahuna hopes to have in two or three months. When that happens, drug cases will
be prosecuted faster, he said.

The police department has three lab technicians and a head criminologist to
handle all of the Big Island cases and is backlogged with 200 cases that are
more than four months old. The new equipment "will make those lab technicians
15 times as efficient," Mahuna said.

Assistant Chief Wendell Paiva said when police arrest someone for drugs they
now have to release them without charges because it takes longer to test the
drugs than the maximum 48 hours police are allowed to hold someone. Police wait
until they get the test results and then prosecutors take the case to a grand
jury for charges.

Meanwhile, the suspect is out on the streets.

With the new equipment, police can charge a person right away and have the test
results in time for a preliminary court hearing a few days later.

The lab equipment was one of the things police requested during the Big
Island's first Ice Summit a year ago.

"It's something that probably we needed five years ago," Mahuna said, "but we
just hadn't found the funding for it."