Kim Buffett never expected to become a police officer while growing up and attending Star of the Sea High School in Waialae-Kahala.
But here she is now, a sergeant in the Honolulu Police Department and its coordinator to the nonprofit CrimeStoppers Honolulu.
“You know, it’s funny,” she said earlier this week, “I went to an all-girls private school, and it was just something that wasn’t expected. But if you tell me I can’t do it, I’m going to do it.”
Buffett joined the department 25 years ago, after four years as a stay-at-home mom and taking some criminology courses at Honolulu Community College. Eight years ago she became the public face of CrimeStoppers Honolulu, which, according to its website, “relies on cooperation between the police, the media and the general community to provide a flow of information about crime and criminals.”
The group has a pervasive media presence; it also makes regular presentations to students in island middle and high schools.
Its activities are overseen by a volunteer board of directors who have a variety of backgrounds.
“We have attorneys, marketing people, security companies, schools, colleges, banks and retired policemen,” she said.
The retired policemen include former HPD Chief Lee Donohue and former HPD Assistant Chiefs William Clark and Eugene Uemura.
The current board president is Keoni Vaughn, director of operations and vice president of the Hawaiian Humane Society.
Operating on a relatively small budget, with money donated by local corporations and others, the group was formed in 1981 and has racked up some impressive numbers since. Last year alone it fielded 578 tips from the hotline, resulting in 230 cases solved and almost $26,000 in stolen property recovered, plus 89 arrests. Student CrimeStoppers fielded 79 tips leading to 11 school actions ranging from suspension to arrest.
Buffet has three children, ages 12 to 31, and lives on the Windward side. She said she is no longer married but is in a relationship.
Question: Before arranging to talk with you, I never realized CrimeStoppers was a nonprofit …
Answer: Really?
Q: Yeah. It’s a 501(c)3 organization, but I always thought it was a part of the Honolulu Police Department.
A: No, we’re a partner. It’s a big misconception that everybody has, and that’s why it’s hard for us to fundraise, because they think we get our money from the police or government funding, but we actually don’t.
Q: Yeah, exactly. So what is the nature of its relationship with HPD?
A: We are a partner with them, so HPD gives us our office space, and of course my position and one officer who works for me, and the reason that position is a police position is due to the nature of the information received.
Q: The nature of the information you receive is what?
A: It’s all police-related. I mean, it’s, you know, tips for crimes that occur, reporting basically on crimes, so we can’t let that go to a civilian employee.
Q: You’ve been the coordinator from HPD since 2005, and why were you selected for that?
A: I got promoted and I was asked by, at that time, Deputy Chief Glen Kajiyama to take over the CrimeStoppers program. Prior to that I was doing a lot of gang presentations and community presentations, working in the gang unit for the Juvenile Services Division. I did a lot of presentations in the public, so I think in their eyes it was a fit.
Q: And how have you been enjoying it since?
A: I love it. It’s a great program. When I took over in 2005, I myself didn’t know much about CrimeStoppers, and after working here for awhile, realized the importance and how it meshed with the police department. My five-year plan for taking over, which I think we’ve met, is to make sure that everyone — police department and public — knows about the CrimeStoppers program.
Q: It certainly is in the public eye. And basically CrimeStoppers is largely a volunteer organization?
A: Yes, so besides myself and one officer that’s assigned to this unit, we have 30 volunteers. We’re actually governed by a board of directors. We meet the first Thursday of every month, and they approve the rewards that we pay out.
Q: How much did all the rewards total last year, for example?
A: Last year we paid out over $25,000 in rewards.
Q: And those were for what?
A: A majority of it is for information that leads to an arrest. The other program that we have that’s associated with CrimeStoppers is Student CrimeStoppers, so we have a lot of calls from students in the schools, and with that program we pay up to $250 for every school sanction, such as a suspension or an arrest.
Q: Is that a big part of the program?
A: Yes. Student CrimeStoppers is very, very successful. We’re in the middle and high schools, and what we do is we allow students to basically call into the program, remain anonymous and keep their school safe. We’re not asking them to be tattletales or anything like that. What we are asking them is to be the eyes and ears for the school. … We also have an Animal CrimeStoppers program, which is very well-received out there.
A: Does that get people calling in?
Q: Yes. We actually solved the recent puppy mill case, and solved another case of neglect at that housing near Aloha Stadium — Crosspointe. There was a big neglect case there in which several dogs were left by the owners. So we’ve had very good success with Animal CrimeStoppers.
Q: How did solving the puppy mill case happen?
A: We got a tip from someone that this was going on, and we sent it over to the Humane Society, and the Humane Society basically gave it to their investigators to check out, which it did.
Q: Do people call you instead of 911?
A: Oh, yes. A lot of times people call us instead of police because they feel that calling them will waste police resources, and they don’t want to do that. So they call us and give us the information, and we definitely will call it in to 911.
Q: And what is the CrimeStoppers number?
A: 955-8300. It’s on every police car. We have a sticker on every police car, so everybody knows our number.
Q: I had no idea.
A: Well, I’m glad we got that out there.
Q: Me, too. What do you think about groups like the Perry and Price posse?
A: They’re good. I mean, you know, they help. Everybody helps. A lot of times people will call (KSSK radio talk show hosts) Perry and Price and they will refer them to call us and give us the information, which is great.
Q: How much money do you guys have for all these programs?
A: Not a lot. Definitely less than a $100,000. It’s tough to get up there, you know? We’re not a warm and fuzzy nonprofit. But we affect everybody. We definitely have helped everybody.
Q: It sounds like you’re pretty efficient with your money, then.
A: Oh, definitely. I mean, the money that we raise in our fundraising not only goes to pay rewards but it also goes to pay to run the office.
Q: Is that list of major sponsors on the website (www.crimestoppers-honolulu.org) also the list of major donors?
A: Yes. They are the people that come to our fundraisers and buy our tables and support us every year. They give us money as well as donations. March 22 is our seventh annual fundraiser, at the Honolulu Country Club. It’s our biggest fundraiser that we do, and the majority of the money that we raise for the year comes from it.
Q: When was CrimeStoppers Honolulu established, and by whom?
A: In 1981, by Chief Doug Gibb. We’re also honoring him this year.
Q: I saw the group’s mission statement online, but as a practical matter, what are you guys really doing? Because, if you go to the website, it looks mostly like you’re trying to find people who jumped bail or something.
A: Well, OK, that’s not our biggest one. Our “most wanted” suspects keep people interested in us every week. That’s how we attract people to our website and get our name out there, and — you know what? — it’s worked very well, because there are people who turn themselves in, and they tell us they did that because they don’t want to be featured. So it’s almost a
deterrent, which is really good.
Q: So what kind of track record has CrimeStoppers had through the years of fulfilling its mission?
A: We have a 95 percent arrest rate.
Q: What does that relate to?
A: Everything we put out. It even boils down to our releases that we put out that we’re looking for bank robbers. We’ve solved 100 percent of those, probably.
Q: Do the bank robbers in Hawaii seem kind of slow to you, because of the way they allow themselves to be identified so easily on the cameras?
A: The cameras definitely have upgraded, and we have better images, and we get them out immediately.
Q: What are your main ways of getting information out to the public?
A: We send out the news releases to all the media. That includes newspapers, radio stations, all the television stations. We just mass email it, and then everybody from there emails it to their contacts.
Q: You have a deal with MidWeek, apparently, that once a year you have the top …
A: Well, actually every week now. So if you go into MidWeek, you will see every week two of Hawaii’s most wanted. It’s the “Crime of the Week.” And we have a really good arrest rate.
Q: How do you pick the crimes to focus on?
A: We go downstairs every week and we pull a bunch of warrants. There are so many. And I’ll just read them. I’ll keep a stack on my desk and I’ll go through it, and as they come up, I’ll feature them.
Then, of course, we have outside agencies that ask us also to feature somebody that they’re looking for and they really want to pick up. We work with sheriffs, FBI, Secret Service, U.S. marshals, all the outside agencies.
Q: Are you still going around to schools? Who does that?
A: I do that. It’s on an as-needed basis. We just went to Kaimuki High School (on Feb. 28). We did two presentations and it went fairly well. The students were receptive. We were already getting calls from the school, and so we wanted to educate the rest of the students, because, you know, word-of-mouth is really big.
Q: What is the point you make to the students?
A: Basically, my grounds for the presentation is keep their schools safe without fear of retaliation, and, again, going back to being the eyes and ears for what’s going on on campus. You know, security can’t be everywhere, and a lot of students don’t want to tell anybody because they fear the retaliation, they’ll get beat up or whatever. So we give them the avenue to call us up, or they can text us or they can email us and it’s all anonymous. And we pay them up to $250, so that’s an even bigger reward for them.
Q: What would you say are some of the highlights in the history of CrimeStoppers Honolulu? Is there anything super-outstanding that just everyone talks about?
A: I don’t know if everybody talks about it, but, you know, just recently, about a year ago, we had a cold case that was 20 years old, and we got a tip, and we gave it to the detectives. They investigated and they arrested someone after 20 years for the murder that happened at the Ilikai, the professor that was visiting.
Q: Do you get calls from people thinking they see terrorists?
A: We haven’t in a while but we’ve had those calls. We’ve had calls ranging from that to where do I call to bury my turtle.
Q: That’s quite a range.
A: Yeah, but we answer all their questions. We appreciate every call, and there’s no dumb calls. You know, some people don’t want to waste our time. But we’ll take any information and let us determine its value, because a lot of times people see things and they’re not sure what they see. And we’ll be happy to decipher and make sense out of it for them.
