KPD Blue: Truth puts on its shoes

I have read Tony's book and while his framing of events in racist terms, in my opinion misses the mark, and there are some minor factual errors it is on the whole more accurate than say typical reporting in most dailies. The real issue is insular corruption by the power structure. Many insular communities, like the rural southern community I grew up in, can and do display this level of corruption, and the power structures racial makeup is entirely different (which is to say white). The race of the power structure is historical artifact, and not the driver of corruption.

As to why Tony wrote it -- that should be self evident. Tony was ridden out of town on a rail for basically doing his job. As a consequence of a reporter becoming (an unwilling) part of the story, charges of "vendetta" can dismiss the truth of the tale being told. Corruption is still in full bloom today, but largely dismissed as understandable as evidenced by this quote from Joan Conrow's blog "...not because the cops were necessarily crooked or bad, but hesitant to bust anyone who was a relative or a friend." Excuse me! Isn't that the definition of corruption: differential treatment under the law based upon affiliation?

Tony had to rely primarily on Court records, because of County of Kauai secrecy that is still a HUGE problem as we speak, and many individual bad actors then, are in positions of power NOW. These problems are still with us manifesting themselves in a variety of ways and will not begin to be addressed by putting these events in the past tense creating the illusion that it is old news and filing it under again quoting Joan's blog, "dredging up the stinky muck one more time for those who perhaps never knew the details or, like me, prefer to have forgotten."

"Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it" while perhaps a trite shopworn phrase is still salient in the lives of Kauai citizens. There are years of executive session minutes still not released by the COK who is frightening tooth and nail to keep it that way. Both the Board of Ethics and Police Commission remain dysfunctional (and that's putting it kindly). KOC has and continues to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars hiring outside attorneys to lose cases defending bad county actors.

Last election the COK council displayed an unbelievable abuse of political power by manufacturing a "tampering with a government document" conspiracy to attack a political opponent running for County Council (former police chief K.C. Lum) using what everyone knew was a sheet-feed error. Lum's house was raided right before the election. Think that played an role in his loss? Duh! After a six month investigation -- guess what? It was a sheet feed error. When the council hatched the conspiracy theory they demanded an apology from "members of the community that were trying to make the county look bad," but not a word of apology from the council members that concocted their lunatic conspiracy for their self-serving political gain. Talk about vendetta!

COK is more secretive today than ever and relies on Mark Twain's astute observation, "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." KPD Blue put shoes on the truth which now must fight for relevancy amid the propaganda spin of "why dredge up ancient history", "lets put it behind us" and, "its much better now." Such propaganda is blowing smoke to obscure the ongoing corruption occurring in real-time before our very eyes.