East Hawai‘i Criminal Investigation Section Detective Keith Simeona was honored with the Haweo Award for his work with the Special Enforcement Unit (SEU).
 
SEU is comprised of three patrol officers and detective responsible for the apprehension of perpetrators in high profile cases. In addition, SEU works with patrol, community policing, criminal investigations, and the vice unit on various other tasks involving efforts to keep the community safe.

Detective Simeona has led the Special Enforcement Unit for nearly two years. Every six months he gets newly assigned patrol officers that manages, trains and supervises.  The identified criminals sought by SEU pose the biggest threat to the community.

In the last six months, Detective Simeona and his team have been responsible for the apprehension of four individuals who were wanted for a total of 513 criminal complaints. The four individuals were wanted for various felonies including, multitude property crimes, firearms and drug offenses, as well as crimes against a person.  One of the fugitives was wanted for multiple drug offenses after police discovered that this person was distributing pounds of methamphetamine. In addition to this criminal activity, this person was known to use firearms in order to facilitate the drug dealing, protection, and collection of proceeds from those sales.  After fleeing from police several times in different vehicles to avoid apprehension, the fugitive was apprehended after an extensive effort by the SEU team spearheaded by Detective Simeona.
 
Detective Simeona’s mentorship of SEU members was also recognized as part of the Haweo award. Unit members credit him with creating a hard working team environment. As one unit member stated, Detective Simeona “provides guidance, [is] there for crucial decisions, shares valuable experiences/knowledge…open to new ideas, and manages based on individual needs, very motivating.”
 
The award was presented by the Council’s Parks and Recreation and Public Safety Committee (PRPSC), which recognizes county police and fire department personnel who go above and beyond the call of duty. Haweo, for which this award is named, means to glow or to be radiant. Detective Simeona was presented with a lei and a certificate signed by each Councilmember at the ceremony.

HPD Photo