New Big Isle police chief helped nail fellow officer

New Hawaii island Police Chief Paul Ferreira was a young detective when he enlisted famed forensic scientist Henry Lee 24 years ago to determine whether a well-liked police sergeant accidentally ran over his wife or if blood spatter inside his van proved it was murder.

Kurt Spohn, who was the deputy attorney general who prosecuted Sgt. Ken Mathison, said Ferreira probably “took some heat from fellow officers” while working months on the case because initially “99 percent of the Police Department thought (the sergeant) was 100 percent innocent.”

“But with Paul, right from Day One he came in with an open mind,” Spohn said. “I think he’ll make a very good chief,” adding that he’s “a very honest, very fair guy.”

Ferreira, a 34-year veteran, will address the media Wednesday in the Hawaii County Police Department’s semiannual media meeting for the first time as chief in Kona. Appointed Dec. 30, Ferreira stepped into the position left open by the retirement of Chief Harry Kubojiri, known for working with the media.

“Our department has come a long way as far as transparency with the community,” he said. “We want to keep doing that,” Ferreira said in a telephone interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“We’ve shown we are open to the community,” adding that the department holds media forums and also helps officers understand the role of the media and why they need to take advantage of the media.

“A lot of good doesn’t get recognized,” Ferreira said, citing the example of an officer who had assisted a man in a wheelchair. He talked to the man and learned he was a veteran, that he was lacking in basic necessities, then housed him in his own home until he found him a place to live through the the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Ferreira said he wants the public to know “we are out there. We are with them.”

The chief said that like all police departments, his has come under greater scrutiny because of fatal police shootings on the mainland — but without the racial component. He supports the use of police body cameras.

“It’s not a fix-all,” he said. “It doesn’t solve all the problems. It’s just another tool for law enforcement in the community.”

He said the biggest problem is funding for the cameras, equipment to maintain and store vast amounts of data, and personnel to manage the program, to review video if requested and to ensure confidentiality of information, such as with juveniles.

Ferreira joined the force in July 1982 and worked 10 years as a patrol officer in Puna, seven years as a detective, then in the administrative bureau. As assistant chief he oversaw finance, human resources, training, safety, workers’ compensation, research and development, and the special response team.

“I joined the Police Department to catch crooks,” he said. “I used to wonder, ‘Who did I (anger)? Why did they take me off the road?’ But it opened my eyes that there was more to the Police Department than catching crooks.”

As a lieutenant he was assigned to the administrative training section. He said it expanded his understanding of what it takes to run a police department — including the personnel, budget and legislative sides of the department.

As for the Mathison case, Ferreira said his role was limited to personally contacting Lee, a renowned blood spatter expert, who testified in the O.J. Simpson trial among other high-profile cases. Lee readily agreed because the case intrigued him and he had never been to Hawaii before.

But Spohn, the former deputy attorney general, said he and Ferreira, and traffic investigator Martin Ellazar, brainstormed for months. “Paul is being humble,” Spohn said. “He actually did a lot more.”

Getting Lee was a major break in the case, Spohn said.

Lee’s testimony was key to his conviction because the blood patterns in the van disputed Mathison’s claims his wife jumped out on Highway 11 on Nov. 27, 1992, during an argument and that he accidentally ran over her. Lee determined the blood spatter came from someone swinging a hammerlike object, Ferreira said. Evidence at trial showed Mathison did it for the insurance money.

Lee was very busy, with the JonBenet Ramsey case coming up next, and he needed someone he could communicate with to get him information right away, and he and Ferreira got along well, Spohn said.