Posted on: Friday, March 12, 2004

EDITORIAL
Beyond common sense: handcuffing the elderly

When a person is arrested, standard procedure is to place the individual in handcuffs.

This for the safety of arresting officers and for the individual.

It's a good policy and it makes sense. Most of the time.

But as staff writer Peter Boylan reported this week, it is possible to follow this policy, as with any other, right over the cliff.

In this case, officers arrested a 78-year-old woman after she attempted to make a purchase at a downtown drug store with what appeared to be a counterfeit $10 bill.

Nevermind that the Secret Service says it is not its policy that an arrest automatically be made. In fact, standard procedure says the local police are supposed to contact the Secret Service, which will inspect the currency, talk to the person who attempted to use it and make a determination if an arrest is warranted.

That's partly because the individual may be unaware that the bill is phony, having received it from someone else.

We can accept that the officers in this case might not have known about the policy of calling in the Secret Service. Or, because the incident happened on a Sunday, they may have concluded that it would be difficult to make immediate contact with the federal agents.

In any event, it seems to be overreaction to handcuff an elderly woman who clearly was no danger to anyone and then put her in a cellblock. Surely this incident could have been handled more sensibly.

Eventually, common sense took over. After the woman was questioned, her interrogator was kind enough to drive her home to Kalihi.

Now, that makes sense.