The Honolulu Police Commission questioned reports that showed racial and wealth-based disparities regarding arrests for stay-at-home violators during the COVID-19 outbreak.

In a scheduled meeting Wednesday, the commission discussed a July 5 letter by Mateo Caballero, legal director for ACLU of Hawaii, that recommended the Honolulu Police Department end racial and wealth-based profiling, aggressive enforcement of low-level offenses and the use of “raw numbers of stops, citations, summons, and arrests” to measure success.

The letter cited a June 29 report conducted by Hawaii Public Radio that showed that Black people, Micronesians, Samoans and homeless people were being arrested by Honolulu police for violating Gov. David Ige’s stay-at-home emergency orders at a disproportionate rate.

Based on ACLU’s own reporting, relative to white people Honolulu police were 30 times more likely to arrest a Black or Samoan person for violating emergency orders during the pandemic.

Homeless people were 55 times more likely to be arrested than housed people were, it reported.

Shannon Alivado, the commission’s chairwoman, said more information should be included to make an accurate analysis of potential disparities.

She pointed to the roughly 240 arrests HPR and ACLU used as data points in their reporting and said that the thousands of citations handed out by HPD during Hawaii’s outbreak would have provided a clearer picture.

“What if … it’s actually whites or Japanese (people) … receiving the highest citations?” Alivado told the Star-Advertiser. “We don’t know that because the information is not there.”

She said that HPD had reported, as of July 1, 3,500 citations and 8,900 park closure warnings for violations of Ige’s March 27 stay-at-home orders.

However, Alivado said that citations are not readily available to the public like arrests are.

“We don’t even know if that information could be available,” she said. “I wouldn’t think that they would collect that data with respect to ethnicity and citations. I don’t suspect HPD has done that.”

Alivado said having citations more available could be looked into.

Caballero said arrests are more significant than citations, especially during the coronavirus outbreak, because it potentially puts those arrested as well as police officers at a higher risk of infection.

“If you’re arrested, you’re booked, you’re in the system,” he said. “And … they’re putting your life and the arresting officer at risk.”

Citations, on the other hand, don’t require anyone to be taken into custody.

Further, Caballero said that the 240 or so arrests provide enough information to analyze.

“240 arrests or so — that’s a large number. And I don’t think you can say it’s statistically insignificant. … It’s not a coincidence,” he said.

Caballero had addressed the letter to Alivado, Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard and HPD Senior Legal Adviser Lynne Goto Uyema, but the commission did not take a stance on the letter and said it would wait for HPD to respond to ACLU.

Alivado did not want to say if she personally believes the arrest disparities existed.

Commissioner Carrie Okinaga found ACLU’s assertion that HPD conducts “aggressive enforcement of low-level offenses” problematic.

“I remember Chief (Ballard) told us there was only one arrest at all the Black Lives Matter protests, I think … that’s just one counterpoint,” she said. “And those protests were during COVID, so … I kind of flinch when I hear that HPD is trying to arrest and criminalize for mask-wearing.”

ACLU’s letter focused on enforcement of drug possession.

“Aggressive enforcement of low-level offenses such as drug possession unnecessarily funnels thousands of people into the criminal legal system — primarily young people of color and poor people,” it said.