Trip to Tonga a learning experience for police

Hons has been helping San Bruno Police Chief Lee Violett on Tongan issues since early this year.

The week-long trip ended March 17, and Phillips said the journey gave him a better understanding of Tongan society.

"I think we got a lot of value out of it, as far as the culture of the Tongan people," Phillips said. "And I think some of it is going to be very useful for us on the street."

Hons said he has broken up fights in San Bruno among Tongans by interjecting in the Tongan language, and he hoped police might look to alternatives like that to defuse situations.

The trip was prompted by fights and shootings among Tongans in the last year, and Tongan churches have rallied to end the violence and better inform local police of the culture.

Tonga has very low crime and holds only 1 in 1,000 in prison, Phillips said, and Tongan youths are usually well disciplined. Nakiso said it is common for parents to physically discipline teens there.

Nakiso, who became ill with pneumonia five days in to the trip, said youths get in trouble less in Tonga in part because there are less places to hide — the island chain is 277 square miles and the population hovers around 110,000.

The "coconut wireless," or gossip network, also keeps people aware of who is getting in trouble, Hons said.

Tongan youths are afraid to get in trouble because it would shame their families, Phillips said.

Extended families often raise children in rural areas in Tonga, and Phillips said youths are often misguided in San Bruno because they are left alone while parents work. Like many immigrants on the Peninsula, Tongans are working not only for their families but to send money to family back home, Nakiso said.

A support network of extended family in Tonga for children to fall back on is often missing here and that can lead to trouble, both policemen said.

Tongan police carry no weapons, but police said their offices are equipped with Dell computers connecting them to the Interpol, fingerprint data banks and of course, the Internet.

"We were shocked it was so state of the art," Phillips said.

The Peninsula delegation was also able to lend a hand to the Tongans, identifying graffiti from the Crips street gang covered by rival gang tags.

Officials there were unaware they were in gang territory, Phillips said.

"They also saw not everybody is violent in Tonga, there's just a few bad apples," Hons said. It was Hons' fifth trip to Tonga, as he had traveled there to deliver firefighting equipment with money raised by the San Bruno Rotary.

Hons paid his own air fare, and the police trips were paid for by donors.

Police in Tonga are now corresponding with San Bruno and Burlingame police, and Phillips said he sees the solution in the long term.

"Let's help each other," Phillips said. "It's not going to be an overnight thing."

Nakiso said he wanted Tongan police to visit the Peninsula, and said the trip gave him alternatives when dealing with one of the Peninsula's Tongan community.

"Everything's handled based on its own merit, what might work for one situation might not work for another. But it has given us more options," he said.

Stephen Baxter can be reached by e-mail at stephen@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 109. What do you think of this story? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.