Hawai'i briefs
Advertiser Staff
HONOLULU
Police to issue seat belt tickets
Motorists are being reminded that police throughout the state will be conducting a "Click It or Ticket" seat belt enforcement campaign from today through the end of the month.
Citations will be issued for drivers and passengers who fail to buckle up in the front seat and for children 17 years and younger who don't wear seat belts in the back seat. Tickets will also be issued if children younger than 4 are not properly restrained in child safety seats.
Nearly 3,600 citations for seat belt violations and 60 citations for failure to use child safety seats were issued during the last campaign. At the time, Hawai'i ranked second nationally for seat belt usage with a rate of 91.8 percent.
Twenty-nine of 61 motor vehicle occupants fatally injured in Hawai'i over the first 10 months of the year were not wearing seat belts, according to the state Department of Transportation.
The law carries a $77 fine. Drivers face up to a $500 fine for child safety seat violations.
NEIGHBOR ISLANDS
Man's death investigated
Big Island police have launched a homicide investigation in the death of a Kona man whose body was found Friday by two fishermen near the North Kohala shoreline. The man was identified as Jonah Mettler, 32, who had been missing since August.
The fishermen found the body amid kiawe brush about 200 feet south of Lapakahi State Historical Park. An autopsy found several bullets in Mettler's body, but a cause of death was not confirmed, police said. Mettler was last seen leaving for work at the Natural Energy Lab in Keahole.
Mink ceremony next week
A ceremony to formally rename a Maui post office in honor of late Democratic Congresswoman Patsy Mink is scheduled for next week. The Pa'ia post office will be renamed the Patsy Takemoto Mink Post Office Monday, the U.S. Postal Service said.
Hawai'i's congressional delegation, which introduced legislation to have the building renamed, is expected to attend the event.
The post office serves the area where Mink was born and raised. Mink, who died in 2002 at 74, served in Congress for 24 years. She also served on the Honolulu City Council for four years.
