The Kaua‘i Police Department confirmed yesterday that three men present at an Aug. 7 protest of development on a Hawaiian burial ground were arrested last week on suspicion of second-degree trespassing, a petty misdemeanor.

Arrests had been delayed as police worked to identify those that had been on the Ha‘ena property. Kaua‘i Police Chief Darryl Perry said the day after the protests that he would be working in conjunction with the County Prosecutor’s Office to secure arrest warrants.

“We looked at photos, talked to the officers on the scene and people who knew them,” Assistant Chief Clayton Arinaga said yesterday. “Based upon that information, we got arrest warrants.”

Officials reported that Andrew Cabebe, 59, of Kilauea, James Hoff, 51, of Kapa‘a, and Harry Fergerstrom, 59, who gave his local address as Pahoa, were arrested on Sept. 5.

At least eight of the roughly 15 protesters, anticipating arrest, intended to link themselves together with self-releasing lock-down devices. However, the more than half-dozen police officers who waited on the street did not make any arrests at that time, instead opting to wait.

“If that’s the channel they have to take, then that’s their decision,” Keli‘i Collier, a spokesman for the protesters, said last month. “They’re going to try to quietly pick us off, one by one, hidden from the view of the public. It’s a new tactic to try to dismember this movement.”

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(Source: Michael Levine, Kauai Garden Island News)

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