Cop At Home Has Persistent Census Worker Arrested

Russell Haas Says He Was Trained To Encourage Residents To Participate In Census, Just Following Federal Law

Census worker Russell Haas has come to expect a little resistance when he goes door to door to count the residents of the rugged communities near Hawaii's Kilauea volcano. He didn't expect to get arrested.

An attempt to get one resident, a county police officer, to fill out Census forms landed Haas in the back of a patrol car with a trespassing charge.

The case is now in federal court, the latest example of disputes this year between Census workers protected by federal law and residents who don't want to deal with them. It has created a rare instance in which federal prosecutors have stepped in to serve as criminal defense attorneys.

"I was trained to encourage everybody to be in the Census," said Haas, 57, a former New Jersey police officer.

Census officials weren't aware of any other case where federal lawyers are defending an arrested employee.

Nationwide, Census workers have met more hostility than they did in the last count a decade ago. The agency tallied 436 incidents involving assaults or threats against its 635,000 enumerators through June 29, more than double the 181 incidents in 2000.

The increase came amid the resurgence of anti-government sentiment in the past year.

The Census intends to finish its count by the end of August, said Celeste Jimenez of the Los Angeles Regional Census Center.

"It is important for residents to participate," she said. "It affects how over $400 billion of federal funding are allocated each year to states for infrastructure and services such as hospitals, job training centers, schools, emergency services."

Hawaii had one of the nation's lowest response rates in the 2000 count, and officials focused on getting a more accurate tally in 2010. They've tried to encourage people, especially Native Hawaiians, to be counted so the state gets its fair share of federal dollars.

In the Big Island's Puna district — a craggy rural area where residents value privacy, independence and the simple life — Haas said he anticipated some resistance, especially from the area's Vietnam War veterans and marijuana growers.

Instead, most of them took the census forms without a fight, "even the angry ones," he said.

When he went out on March 20, he said, he found trouble when a resident refused to accept Census forms and told Haas to leave his fenced property. Census workers are told in their manuals that they should do their best to gain access to areas surrounded by gates.

"When this guy showed me his badge, I went, 'Dude, you have to be in the Census, what are you talking about?'" Haas said.

The resident continued to refuse to take the Census, and Haas said he waited outside a chain-link fence while the resident called his co-workers at the Hawaii County Police Department.

When police arrived, instead of asking the resident to accept the forms as required by federal law, the officers crumpled the papers into Haas' chest and handcuffed him, Haas said. The department hasn't released the name of the officer who told Haas to leave his property.

Haas said he told officers that it was his duty to leave the Census forms with the resident, and that he would leave as soon as he did it.

The officers were enforcing state law and had not been trained on the federal Census law, Hawaii County Police Maj. Sam Thomas said.

[link to cbs5.com]