So, six months ago we got together with the University of Hawaii and its forensic anthropology
department and we pre-staged a crime scene with two victims that we had buried in a shallow grave
on campus here.
We have five blocks of instruction.
Real basics on how to approach crime scenes that include crime-scene safety, search patterns,
how to engage in crime scene photography and sketching, and how to gather evidence and
take good quality notes.
With those basic skills, our students go ahead and are dropped into a two-day field training
exercise.
School number one that participates in this is Waipahu High School.
Waipahu High School is our socially, economically disadvantaged at-risk neighborhood.
So, we have a number of high-performing students with a high degree of resilience, but come
from a very different economic and ethnic background attending Waipahu High School.
School number two that we’re partnering with is our privileged all-girls Sacred Hearts
Academy, a well-known high school here in the state of Hawaii that has a rock-star STEM
program.
These are very high-performing students that are highly driven.
When I first became a police officer back in 2000 over here in Waipahu, it was a completely
different neighborhood from what we see today.
There was high crime, a lot of truancy.
In certain areas of the neighborhood officers could not go in alone.
They had to go in with two or three officers; two officers that service the 911 call in
that area and one officer to stay outside and watch the cars to make sure the cars weren’t
vandalized.
It was a really—it was kind of a rough neighborhood.
So, what we’re really trying to do, ultimately, the outcome we’re looking to achieve are
the drastic reduction of those numbers—can we reduce violence, can we reduce drugs in
that neighborhood to make that neighborhood a safer and better place.
You learned that you’ve got to work together as a team, and always as a team, because you’re
never by yourself.
And we ended up finding two bodies of one male and one female.
And that was actually really cool digging it up.
It definitely made me feel more connected.
You know how different police stations connect to each other?
They barely know anything about the other police station.
Yet here they are.
They're working together to solve this case and try to bring justice to this victim of it.
We’re taking a lot of the core values that would make successful people in general—not
only successful FBI agents or successful FBI employees.
But what are those elements that lead to long-term success?
And trying to see if we can implement some of that in the school.
It makes me feel really humbled to think that someone would go through all this trouble
just so I could have this experience of solving a real crime.
I think it was a great experience for both sides, to look at and learn from each other.
Thanks to Special Agent Laanui and the FBI in working and building our academy, I think
our students see law enforcement perhaps in a different light now for some of them.
Now it’s, hey, you know, they’re here to help.
That’s my friend.
We keep injecting positive messages and positive things and building positive relationships
with people, eventually the only thing that could happen are positive things.
So, there is a neighborhood and a campus renaissance that's kind of taking place.
And walking on that campus now is absolutely phenomenal.
There is nothing but really advanced learning that’s taking place.
And not only learning but a zeal and an excitement about learning that hasn't been there before.
And we’re really fortunate to have been partnered with this school to help play a
role in some of that.