The analysis started with a basic records request.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser obtained the Honolulu Police Department’s roster of 2,100 officers as of late April. The list excluded up to 20 who work undercover.
The newspaper ran each name through the federal and state judiciary databases in Hawaii, looking for criminal prosecutions, civil rights-related lawsuits or temporary restraining orders in which an officer was named as a defendant. Some officers were named in multiple cases.
The 200-plus lawsuits we found resulted from on-duty conduct. The criminal cases were a mix, while the TROs involved mostly off-duty conduct. We didn’t exclude off-duty cases because an officer is sworn to uphold the law — and not doing so, whether on the job or off, raises questions about one’s fitness to serve and protect.
We counted only cases that were initiated after the officer joined the force. And we included only those in which we could verify through court records or other sources that the defendants were indeed HPD officers.
Some we could not verify, especially with TROs. While we confirmed about 80, HPD counted about 160 TRO cases since 2010. So our analysis understates the problem.
Samuel Walker, professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice in Omaha, said the newspaper’s analysis used a more stringent measure than what is common in police evaluations, making the findings all the more disconcerting.
Evaluators typically use citizen complaints, which are much easier to file, and many complaints don’t rise to the level of a court case, according to Walker.
“You set a very high standard for misconduct: getting into court,” he said.
