Hawaii island police chief calling it quits

HILO >> Hawaii County Police Chief Harry Kubojiri will retire at the end of this year, wrapping up a 37-year police career that spanned dramatic growth and change in his island community along with a troubling increase in the violence that his officers encounter in the field.

The nine-member Hawaii County Police Commission will select a replacement for Kubojiri, who has been chief since 2008.

Kubojiri, 58, said he took the chief’s job with two key goals in mind: to make the department’s operations more transparent, and to win accreditation for the department from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies Inc.

Only about 1,200 of the 23,000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S. are accredited by CALEA, and the Hawaii County department won accreditation in 2012.

When Kubojiri started with the department in 1979, he said, officers typed their own reports using carbon paper and Wite-Out, and carried six-shot, .38-caliber Smith &Wesson pistols in their holsters. The island had 238 officers at the time, and since then has grown to an authorized strength of 450, making the department the second largest in the state.

“We never had a special response team back in the day,” Kubojiri recalled. “We were it.”

Officers today dictate their reports for department stenographers, and the department is converting to a 15-shot Glock 9 mm pistol as the standard-issue police weapon. Technology has made the police force more efficient, but the growing population makes ever-increasing demands for service on officers, he said.

Kubojiri said police also cope with more violence in the community and more violence against officers.

“I really don’t know what I can put my finger on as the exact cause of it, but when you look nationwide it’s happening everywhere,” Kubojiri said. “Police officers are encountering more violence on the streets, as well in the homes with domestic violence, than ever before.

“With all the social programs that they have available to them, we still have this problem, and the one common denominator we see here on this island is substance abuse, whether it be alcohol, or crystal methamphetamine, or we see a rise in heroin right now,” he said.

This past year has been a particularly violent period for Hawaii County police, with four police-involved fatal shootings in East Hawaii.

Police shot and killed fugitive Ronald Barawis, 38, and also shot a 28-year old woman in the car with him in Hilo on Feb. 5 after Barawis allegedly drove over barriers, accelerated his vehicle and drove directly at an officer, ramming into two police vehicles.

Police also shot and killed 29-year-old Scottie I.K. Yanagawa on Feb. 9 after Yanagawa allegedly fired a handgun as he was being stopped by police in Hilo.

On June 6 an officer shot and killed 25-year-old Kalyp Rapoza after Rapoza allegedly lunged at an officer with a knife in Hilo, and police shot and killed 36-year-old BJ Medeiros on July 21 in Puna after Medeiros allegedly pointed a gun at an officer.

“Just this year alone the shootings we’ve had in Hilo, that was unheard of when I started,” Kubojiri said.

Kubojiri declined to suggest who should be his successor but said any of the department’s assistant chiefs or majors would have to accept a “huge pay cut” if they were to take his place as chief. The chief earns about $130,000, but the salary for the top job has not kept pace with the pay of lower-ranking police administrators whose salaries are tied to collective-bargaining increases, he said.

Kubojiri said he has no firm plans after retirement but intends to take a few months to “unwind” with some shoreline fishing, golf and spending more time with his grown children.