BY JIM DOOLEY – A former police officer with a Peeping Tom track record is at it again, according to allegations filed this month in court.
Without admitting wrongdoing, Craig Clissold agreed Sept. 15 to have no contact for three years with neighbors who accused him of peering into their windows at night.
Neighbor Robert Tinsley believes police have given Clissold special treatment because he is a retired cop. Tinsley had previously complained to HPD about Clissold’s behavior and then caught him in his yard the night of September 3, peeping into a window, according to court records.
Clissold, 69, told officers he was “looking for his cat” and wasn’t arrested.
Clissold’s wife, Adriane, said her husband could not discuss the case and stressed that no allegations were proven against her husband.
Tinsley said he is “furious” about how authorities have handled the matter.
One neighbor reported to Tinsley that she had repeatedly seen Clissold in Tinsley’s yard. The retired police officer was charged with the same type of behavior on the same quiet street in Hawaii Kai 10 years ago,Tinsley pointed out.
Clissold pleaded no-contest to a misdemeanor invasion of privacy charge in 2001 after police caught him in another neighbor’s yard.
The victim in the 2001 case, a flight attendant, accused Clissold of repeatedly peeping into her bedroom window at night.
His lawyer said at the time that Clissold was undergoing therapy for an “adjustment disorder,” according to a news account. The court ordered him to complete a mental health evaluation and perform 200 hours of community service.
Clissold was allowed to keep his badge and gun and the misdemeanor charge was erased from his record in 2002 after he completed a year of probationary supervision.
Clissold retired from the HPD in 2002. He was a lieutenant at the time of retirement and had been on the force for 30 years.
Clissold and his wife have held a license to operate a child care business in their Hawaii Kai home since 1983.
They are authorized to care for up to six children at a time. The Department of Human Services, which issues child care licenses, said it conducts annual criminal history checks of its licensees and neither of the Clissolds has a record that would disqualify them from child care work, the department said.
In late May or early June of this year, a neighbor who walks her dog at night along Kalanipuu Street in Hawaii Kai reportedly saw Clissold “rapidly exit” the driveway of Tinsley’s home and quickly cross the street to his own house.
Tinsley had recently moved into the rental home with his wife and two young sons.
The same neighbor said she saw Clissold on the Tinsley’s property four more times over the next two months. He always wore black shorts and a black t-shirt and the lights were always off at the Tinsleys’ house, the neighbor said in a written statement Sept. 12.
The woman, who asked not to be identified by name, said she didn’t know the Tinsleys or Clissold and debated what to do or say about what she had observed.
Then on July 30th, the woman and her spouse encountered Clissold coming out of the Tinsley’s property around 10 in the evening.
“We were startled by the same man as he stepped out to the edge of the driveway almost right into us,” the statement said.
The next day, the neighbor introduced herself to the Tinsleys, told them about Clissold’s behavior and gave them a copy of a 2001 news story about Clissold’s criminal case.
Tinsley called the police that evening and was told by the responding officers that if the Tinsleys saw Clissold in their yard, he would be arrested.
“If you see him in your yard, we’ll arrest him for trespassing,” Tinsley said the officers told him.
At around 11 p.m. on the evening of September 3, Tinsley said, he saw Clissold standing in Tinsley’s yard, staring through a window as Tinsley watched television.
Tinsley ran outside, confronted Clissold, and called the police, he said.
At least four officers eventually responded to Tinsley’s house, including a “shift commander” who knew Clissold and “was calling him Craig,” Tinsley said.
Clissold was not arrested after telling police he had been “looking for his cat” in Tinsley’s driveway.
Tinsley said that after he filled out paperwork for a restraining order against Tinsley and took it to police for legal service on Clissold, an officer at the Hawaii Kai station told him, “I know Craig. He’s harmless.”
Clissold was served with the paperwork a week later, according to Tinsley.
Clissold appeared at a District Court hearing Sept. 15 and agreed to a three-year injunction that prohibits him from having any contact with Tinsley or his family.
The injunction also bars Clissold from owning or possessing any firearms.
Tinsley is very unhappy with Clissold and the police.
“I think my wife and children have a right to feel safe in our home,” he said.
“My family is terrified. Every time a leaf falls from a tree outside, my wife thinks he’s out there, watching us,” said Tinsley.
“I’ve written letters to the mayor and contacted the police but I haven’t heard anything back,” he said.
He said he called the Internal Affairs Division of HPD to complain about the lack of action by officers, but missed a return call when he was away on a brief business trip.
“I’m going to write them a follow-up letter,” he said.
HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu said the department would respond to Tinsley after he contacts Internal Affairs.
In his Sept. 9 letter to Mayor Peter Carlisle, Tinsley said the police “made me and my wife feel like the bad guys.”
He said he runs a multi-million dollar business that continues to grow and will “create additional tax revenue and additional jobs” in Hawaii.
“If I don’t feel safe in our community I’m not going to create these jobs here in Honolulu or Hawaii. I can easily create these new business units on the mainland,” Tinsley wrote.
“My belief is business should always support the local community but my expectation is the local community has to support me. When the police protect one of their own over the safety of my family, a line has to be drawn,” Tinsley’s letter said.
Carlisle spokesman Jim Fulton said the mayor has not yet seen Tinsley’s letter.
Let me get this right. The perp has a known disorder that he has received treatment for, probably included medication. The victim has a chain of Pharmacies and has no empathy for the perp and his past therapy including any medication management. What can we draw from this story in regards to the overall empathy of one neighbor and his family to his elder neighbor’s disorder, especially given that the victim has monies and should have appreciable knowledge and empathy toward his neighbor’s dilemma, yet cannot muster this empathy and would prefer to wiggle a wad of bills for preferential treatment over an obviously ill man.
Nope doesn’t sound like you have it right. You make a number of assertions and allegations that are not backed up by facts presented in the story or in any research we have available to us. However, if you have other information to back up your claims, please email them to the reporter Jim Dooley at jim@hawaiireporter.com
Don’t count on receiving any substantiation from “soshaljustic”. He’s a regular bomb thrower with a history of reckless accusations and inflammatory, generally incoherent rants.
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I’m sure the entire neighborhood is upset with the lack of action by the responding officers. Call it professional courtesy or whatever, but the story gets around and ‘respect’ for the uniformed police officers gets lower year after year. Believe me, it’s not the only incident that we know of, albeit, nowhere as creepy as giving a peeping tom a pass. For example an off-duty cop sideswiped a car parked in a basement garage and the security camera recorded his license plate, but the same lack of action after it was reported to HPD. Actually HPD dragged it on and eventually their excuse for dropping the case was that the cop had now moved to another island. Cops should stick to enforcing the LAW instead of listening to their brains. There is a difference. Or perhaps, a citizen should start a website to compile these incidents of dereliction of duty. Do we have to stand with a video camera every time cops are called. I personally can’t see why Mr. Peeping Tom was not charged with an invasion of privacy the same as in 2001 on the spot.
How can this guy run a daycare?
I'm going through a similar situation. I don't feel safe in my home with my daughter any advice would be helpful thank you
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