Kailua-Kona
DUI fatality
Another light sentence
We have another example of a light sentence handed down, by the priesthood, 3rd Circuit Court Judge Elizabeth Strance, as reported by WHT Dec. 21.
Rance Kapono Rapozo killed John Shield while under the influence of an intoxicant, with no vehicle insurance and leaving Mr. Shields dying in the street. Mr. Shields later died at the hospital.
Rapozo was sentenced to eight months in jail, fines, enter a worthless rehabilitation program and enter into a defensive driver course. Why the defensive driver course? Maybe so Rapozo, after he gets out in six months, will learn to avoid the nearly 1,000 DUI drivers on the Big Island in one year’s time.
This county has the deadliest (per capita) traffic in all the United States, 20 to 25 deaths a year. What is the motive or reasoning for this contempt toward civilization, to give killers a light sentence? Why this barbarism posing as justice? Why do the hand-wringers, state Reps. Josh Green, Cindy Evans, Bob Herkes and Denny Coffman, refuse to write laws to protect us from the bench?
In most states, killing someone under the influence of an intoxicant is second-degree murder, wanton mayhem, but not with this gang in Honolulu or Elizabeth Strance.
Wayne Braden
Captain Cook
Jet noise
Stop whining
I must reply to Mr. Inkster’s letter to the editor of Dec. 14: I am truly disappointed with his attack on our own U.S. Air Force for its touch-and-go landings at our local airport facility. I have been in Kailua-Kona for 37 years and I also hear this so-called noise.
I am Canadian-born, moving with my family to Portland, Ore., when I was 14. I was educated in the U.S., including an advanced degree, drafted into the U.S. Army serving two years for our country and am a true patriot.
He whines over a few days of jet noise that can be music to one’s ears, if you take into consideration and be grateful they are our planes and not those of Dec. 7, 1941.
The training these pilots need to serve our country must be somewhere and our airport has much less traffic than Honolulu. Mr. Inkster has more to whine about than complaining about those who are protecting our country.
Voltaire said: “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to my death your right to say it.”
Jim Ward
Kailua-Kona