Police Commission needs to act

According to its mission statement, the Honolulu Police Commission aims to "enhance the public confidence, trust and support in the integrity, fairness and respect of the police department, its officers and employees." It’s hard to see how, in the handling of the issues surrounding the chief of police, it is fulfilling that mandate.

As the authority supervising the Honolu-lu Police Department, the commission must be proactive in taking action to clear the cloud of mistrust that now hangs over HPD.

Instead, this week the commission announced it would wait for the conclusion of a possible FBI probe of how HPD handled a case involving the alleged theft of a mailbox at the home of Police Chief Louis Kealoha.

This ignores the fact that while the FBI and federal prosecutors need evidence that meets strict criteria to support criminal charges, the commission has a different task. It must protect the department’s integrity whether or not criminal charges are involved, especially when the chief of police may be compromised.

The commission must act objectively and dispassionately, in a manner that engenders public trust in its work.

To recap the events of a tumultuous year for the chief: The mailbox episode is linked to a family dispute involving Gerard Puana, the uncle of Kealoha’s wife, Deputy City Prosecutor Katherine Kealoha.

The federal charges were officially dismissed Tuesday, less than two weeks after the case ended in a mistrial because Kealoha had offered unsolicited comments about Puana’s criminal history during his testimony.

Puana, who had been accused of stealing the mailbox for documents related to the family dispute, must be relieved because the case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it can’t be prosecuted again. But the mistrial also means the arguments to be made by the defense, critiquing the actions of the police in the investigation of this incident, wouldn’t come out in court — at least not for now.

Kealoha maintains that his comments that caused the mistrial constituted a mistake, not a purposeful tactic to shut down further testimony. Whether the utterance was a simple error or actual misconduct is one of the questions before the FBI and the Office of the U.S. Attorney.

So far, the commission seems content to sit back and let federal authorities do all the work. And the fact that Commission Chairman Ron Taketa seems inclined to accept Kealoha’s assurances without further inquiry is plainly disturbing.

"I’m convinced that it was completely inadvertent," Taketa said.

Even if true, such comments raise questions about the objectivity of Taketa and the commission itself, which recently reaffirmed Kealoha’s second five-year term as the controversy swirled in the public eye.

Taketa asserted that the commission does hold the chief to a higher standard than other city employees, adding that Kealoha has been forthcoming with the commission about his family dispute. That may be so, but Kealoha’s disclosures to the commission only represent one side of the story.

Taketa also asserted that the commission does not have the legal powers of the federal authorities to conduct investigations and "must follow the lead of those higher authorities."

But the City Charter gives the commission the duty of "considering and investigating charges brought by the public against the conduct of the department," so it clearly has the power as well as the responsibility to investigate.

And while the commission should incorporate the results of an FBI probe, it need not wait.

The commissioners can start by asking Alexander Silvert, the federal public defender representing Puana, to present them with the evidence he claims to have demonstrating police misconduct in the case. Silvert did present his findings to federal prosecutors and plans to do so again for the FBI.

One of Kealoha’s predecessors in the job, Lee Donohue, said he was concerned about an "ebbing of public trust" in HPD stemming from "potshots" in the media against the chief. Without that public trust, HPD will struggle to fight crime in the community, he added.

On that last point, Donohue is correct. Public trust must be restored. Observing that the commission now has a job to do in restoring that trust is not a mere potshot. It’s a reality check.