The Honolulu Police Department has serious ongoing and unresolved issues with its use-of-force policies and training. Although HPD may not specifically be targeting Black folks when it comes to deadly force employed against unarmed citizens, the lack of training, lack of proper record-keeping, and failure to open up the records for public inspection contribute to a police department that is killing too many unarmed citizens as to whom entirely different practices are warranted.
Shootings aside, there are other troubling issues with HPD that warrant open records in this area.
Law Professor Lawson (co-author of this piece) was a legal expert for local and national media in the Louis and Katherine Kealoha criminal case, and in that case alone, there were numerous officers and supervisors who were never charged or disciplined for their misconduct or failure to report the misconduct of others. It should always be concerning when the police investigate themselves in the dark.
When HPD Chief Susan Ballard took over from Louis Kealoha, she promised to restore the public trust. Many of us took her at her word, believing she meant at least two things when she made that promise:
1) The public had lost trust in the police department; and
2) Actions, not words, are necessary to restore that trust. Chief Ballard supporting House Bill 285 is a step in the right direction.
In contrast, SHOPO President Malcolm Lutu, in a June 17 commentary (“Exposing officers’ names won’t help,” Island Voices, Star-Advertiser), purported to quote Lawson for the proposition that HB 285 should not pass. Lutu wrote: “ … Ken Lawson said, ‘I can tell you firsthand, we’re lucky we live in Hawaii. This wouldn’t be happening in Hawaii … Our police officers care about the community because they live in the community.”
What Lutu failed to point out is that Lawson was referring specifically to police officers in Buffalo, N.Y., pushing a 75-year-old peaceful protestor to the ground, severely injuring him, and walking on by while blood was streaming from his head and mainland officers shooting rubber bullets at peaceful protestors and beating them with clubs. And Lawson was reflecting on his experiences last year when he joined our Native Hawaiian brothers and sisters in protecting Mauna Kea and observed how law enforcement personnel interactions with the kupuna and others was totally different from what we have witnessed on the mainland.
What about Lutu and SHOPO, the police union? Remember officer Darren Cachola, who was kept on the force for over 17 years despite being accused of violently assaulting multiple women, including his wife, a girlfriend and the mother of his child. HPD finally fired Cachola in 2014 after a host of assault complaints, one of which resulted in video evidence of Cachola punching his girlfriend. Despite years of allegations and credible evidence, when Cachola was finally fired, the police union intervened to protect Cachola and get Cachola his job back. Are these the types of actions that SHOPO President Lute fights to keep secret? Yes, they are.
We fully support HB 285. If enacted into law, it would require Hawaii’s four-county police chiefs to disclose in annual reports to the state Legislature the identity of any officer who is suspended or discharged from a county police department and improve public access to review misconduct records for officers who have been suspended.
The public has a clear right and an obvious need to know which officers have been disciplined and the reasons for their discipline as a starting point for the discussion to reform police policies and practices in our community.
Kenneth Lawson, left, is a law professor at the University of Hawaii-Manoa; Eric A. Seitz is a civil rights attorney.
