(BIVN) – A man who was detailing his experience with police brutality on Hawaiʻi Island stormed out of the County Council chamber on Monday, when his allotted time to speak expired before he was finished.
Paul Potnode was providing public testimony on a proposed whistleblower program during the Hawai’i County Council Governmental Relations and Economic Development Committee. He was part of a group that attended the meeting to express their concerns about the implementation of the program and to share their stories.
Potnode was in the middle of reading an account detailing an altercation with authorities when his three minutes to testify expired. Potnode kept talking, and when the council cut off his microphone and called for a recess, he lashed out at the councilmembers and stormed out of the chamber in an uproar.
Potnode did not return to the meeting, but other testifiers went on to share their concerns with police and government corruption, before the public testimony ended and the council discussed the whistleblower program. Big Island Video News will be posting video of that discussion later this evening.
