HPD soft on discipline

SECOND OF THREE PARTS

Using the frame of his Taser, a Honolulu police officer struck a bystander’s hand as the man shot video of a friend’s arrest. The blow was strong enough to fracture the hand, according to court documents.

When the victim, who was not arrested, asked the officer for his badge number, the officer refused to provide it. The officer also failed to submit a police report on the incident.

After the victim complained, the Honolulu Police Department opened a felony assault investigation, confirming the injury and the officer’s actions. His punishment was a one-day suspension.

That 2014 case highlights what critics say is a common problem with HPD’s secretive discipline system: Police are too soft on punishing their own.

In a 2015 case, an unidentified HPD officer received a one-day suspension for intentionally slamming a door on a complainant, injuring that person and triggering a felony investigation, according to agency records.

Also in 2015 an unidentified officer used unreasonable force to strike a suspect multiple times with his baton, causing serious injury. A felony assault investigation ensued. The officer received a three-day suspension.

Those were the only details included from the 2015 incidents in an annual discipline report that the agency must file with the Legislature.

Lack of accountability

Beyond the bare-bones summaries of cases in the reports, HPD typically makes no other details available because of a state law that keeps records of police discipline cases confidential. Even the names of those found to have committed misconduct are protected from disclosure — except in cases of firings.

No other county or state worker in Hawaii is afforded such protections.

The lack of transparency means the public has no way to determine whether Hawaii police departments are effectively punishing their own when officers cross the line.

Some cases that seem especially serious can result in suspensions of only one or two days, while those that appear to be less serious have led to suspensions of many days or even firings. The public is provided little context, such as whether the offender has a history of violations.

“There is no accountability whatsoever for police misconduct,” said attorney Eric Seitz, who has filed numerous lawsuits against HPD on behalf of clients but can’t recall any in which the officers were disciplined.

HPD officials say they will not tolerate misconduct and that all cases are pursued aggressively, even small ones that once would have been dismissed with a verbal warning. They cited as an example an officer missing a scheduled court appearance.

“Some of these may have been minor infractions that may have been overlooked in the past or just verbally been, ‘Hey, you can’t do this,’” said Assistant Chief William Axt, who oversees HPD’s administrative bureau. “Now we’re actually doing written investigations and documenting these things.”

HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu also mentioned that in many instances the sanctions imposed by HPD are reduced through the grievance process — though that wasn’t the case with the two 2015 assault investigations and the one involving a Taser, according to the records.

The question of whether HPD is doling out discipline at levels sufficient to serve as deterrents has been raised increasingly as officer after officer has been found to be on the other side of the law.

A Honolulu Star-Advertiser analysis found that 55 officers over the past six years have been arrested or prosecuted — a rate of one every 5.7 weeks.

A reputation for leniency

Even a New York professor who teaches police ethics classes said she was familiar with the leniency of HPD sanctions.

“Discipline, at least from the research, (shows) you’re very lenient,” said Maria Haberfeld, professor of police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

She said her class typically discusses at least one Hawaii case a year. When the Honolulu Star-Advertiser asked her to review the discipline imposed in the two 2015 cases and the 2014 one, she replied, “No surprises there whatsoever.”

The issue of light punishment even surfaces when HPD officers are successfully prosecuted in state court.

Of the 21 who were convicted or pleaded guilty or no contest to criminal offenses since 2010, only one was sentenced to time behind bars, according to the newspaper’s analysis.

Eighteen of the 21 were granted so-called deferred acceptances of guilty or no contest pleas, getting the chance to avoid a conviction altogether. If the defendants, usually first-time offenders, are able to stay out of trouble for a specified period, the court typically dismisses the charges, leaving the offender’s record unblemished.

None of the 18 who received deferrals were given sentences that included jail or prison time. They instead got fines, community service or counseling classes, or a combination of these. More than a dozen are still on the force.

Dave Furtado was among the 18, though he no longer is with HPD.

Circuit Judge Rom Trader in 2012 granted the former officer’s request for deferred guilty and no-contest pleas to felony and misdemeanor charges for using the names and Social Security numbers of other officers and forging their signatures to get part-time work.

Furtado told the court he believed what he did was wrong but not criminal.

Furtado was granted a five-year deferral period. If he avoids trouble with the law until 2017, the charges are to be dismissed, sparing him a conviction.

Trader also ordered him to pay a $2,500 fine and perform 100 hours of community service.

In opposing Furtado’s deferred plea, Prosecutor Chris Van Marter told the court it would minimize “the seriousness of the conduct, and it sends the wrong message to others in the Police Department who might contemplate finding ways to get around the rules, to beat the system, for their own financial gain.”

In federal court, deferrals aren’t even allowed. And the sentences handed down there typically are harsher.

Of the eight HPD officers prosecuted in federal court since 2010, all were convicted, and six of the eight ended up getting jail or prison terms ranging from three to 33 months, according to the newspaper’s review. None are still on the force.

Multiple deferrals

Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro, whose office handles criminal cases in state court, agreed that punishments in the state system tend to be more lenient.

“It goes to the judges,” Kaneshiro told the Star-Advertiser. Generally, “the judges take a more liberal approach in punishment, not only with police cases, but in all cases.”

Kaneshiro said his office opposes deferred pleas in most instances but especially in ones involving police defendants. Officers should be held to higher standards because their job is to enforce the law, he said.

Yet, he said, some officers have received multiple deferrals, undermining accountability. “In a sense it kind of hurts the enforcement of the law because people feel you have second, third and fourth chances and you get away with it,” Kaneshiro said.

In the administrative arena, misconduct cases are decided by Chief Louis Kealoha.

An HPD spokeswoman told the Star-Advertiser that the department could not comment on individual cases, citing privacy laws and the department’s collective bargaining agreement.

Union protection

The power of the police union often is cited by those who contend officers are not held sufficiently accountable for misconduct.

“The union takes the position that, right or wrong, you can’t touch our officers,” said Seitz, the attorney. “I think that’s horrible.”

Tenari Ma’afala, president of the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, did not respond to several requests for comment by the Star-Advertiser’s deadline.

In HPD’s 2015 report to the Legislature, the department cited more than 70 misconduct cases. Those numbers are up considerably from prior years, but a change in reporting requirements made in 2014 makes comparisons problematic.

The 2015 offenses ranged from minor policy violations, such as being disrespectful to another officer, to major criminal offenses, such as sexual assault.

To help with misconduct decisions, the police chief gets feedback from an internal panel and the Honolulu Police Commission, the civilian oversight body that investigates noncriminal complaints. The commission sustains on average 15 percent to 17 percent of the 100-plus complaints it usually gets each year.

Civilian overview

As part of the commission’s annual task to evaluate the chief’s job performance, it reviews all discipline cases to ensure Kealoha sufficiently addresses misconduct, according to Ron Taketa, the group’s chairman.

The adequacy of sanctions has not been an issue in the annual evaluations, Taketa said. “The discipline imposed has suited the violations they’ve been found guilty of.”

California resident Courtney Wilson doesn’t buy that.

Wilson and her then-partner, Taylor Guerrero, were visiting Oahu last year when they alleged that police wrongfully arrested them after an officer saw the couple kissing in a North Shore grocery store. They were never prosecuted, and the women sued the officer and the city, which recently agreed to settle the case for $80,000. The city did not admit any wrongdoing.

An internal HPD investigation also did not find any misconduct on the part of the officer, Bobby Harrison, who retired.

Wilson was not surprised. “They’re just not willing to take responsibility for the actions of their officers,” she said of HPD.

IN THE DARK

Given the lack of transparency in police misconduct cases, it’s impossible for the public to determine whether Honolulu Police Department officers are held sufficiently accountable when they cross the line. These cases were taken from the annual discipline reports HPD is required to submit to the Legislature.

Crossing The Line by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd