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The disproportionate involvement of Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders and Blacks in police arrests and “use of force” incidents caught the attention of Honolulu Police Commission members in their ongoing re-examination of Honolulu Police Department policies — an effort that sprung from recent police shootings on the mainland and calls for law enforcement reforms nationwide.
HPD data presented to the commission last week showed Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders were involved in 34.5% of the total force incidents and accounted for 38% of arrests in 2019, even though they make up 23% of the population on Oahu, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
The data also showed that Blacks were involved in 7.4% of force incidents and 5.2% of arrests, while comprising 4.2% of the island’s population.
Information provided separately to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser by HPD indicated that of the eight officer-involved fatalities in 2019, seven of the dead were either Native Hawaiian, part-Hawaiian or Samoan.
Five of the fatalities resulted from police firing their weapons and three were caused by “physical force.” The fatalities included seven males and a female, all but one of whom were determined to have used methamphetamine, HPD said.
At Wednesday’s presentation, commission member Michael Broderick, a former state judge and past president and CEO of YMCA of Honolulu, said he had “very serious concerns” about the use of force impacts on Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders and Blacks. He questioned why a breakdown of the race, age and gender of officers involved in force incidents was not provided in the report, as recommended in a September executive summary on HPD’s use of force.
Broderick said the summary also recommended that information on officers’ race be integrated into HPD’s records management system.
Police Chief Susan Ballard responded that would happen when a new records management system comes online later this year.
Commission Chairwoman Shannon Alivado noted the same trends have been seen in COVID-19 enforcement against Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, raising questions about possible targeting of those populations.
“It’s beyond what the department probably has access to, as far as why those groups have increased numbers, but that is something you would want them looking into and being proactive about,” she said after the meeting.
In a statement Friday, Ballard said HPD officers receive training “in cultural awareness, hate crimes and implicit bias as part of their police training. They make arrests or issue citations based on the probable cause that a crime has occurred, and any type of force that they use or display must be reported.”
“The number of incidents that involve force is less than half of 1 percent of the total police reports generated. Every allegation of misuse of force is investigated thoroughly, and officers found to have violated the department’s use of force policy are subject to suspension or discharge,” Ballard said.
“Statistics are a useful tool when combined with real-world experience.”
Alivado also expressed concern about the “alarming” 158% rise in force incidents over a five-year period involving people suffering from mental health problems.
“That means that these folks need help, and is there another alternative that we can use to respond with,” she told the Star-Advertiser.
Overall, HPD counted 2,354 use of force incidents in 2019, the highest total in five years and almost double the number from five years ago — increases officials attributed in part to a higher number of police reports filed and an improved system for tracking cases.
Although the 2019 numbers were higher than in previous years, HPD officials noted that varying degrees of force were used in only 0.41% of the 568,157 police reports filed that year, and in only 0.32% of the 2.9 million reports over the five-year period from 2015 to 2019.
HPD’s 1,823 sworn officers are required to file reports for any use of force beyond “routine handcuffing,” according to the presentation by Assistant Chief Rade Vanic. He said the levels of control employed by officers don’t always involve physical confrontation and may include the display of a baton or unholstering of firearm, or “light touch” encounters in which, for example, an officer lightly places a hand on a person’s back or arm and directs them away from an unsafe situation.
Until HPD suspended its use in June, officers also were authorized to employ vascular neck restraint, or a submission hold, as an “immediate” level of force — a practice that has come under particular scrutiny after George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police in May.
When properly used, the hold applies pressure to both sides of the neck, the back of the neck and to the front of the chest to restrict blood flow to the brain and induce momentary unconsciousness, HPD said.
Vascular neck restraint was used in 11 of 2,354 total force incidents in 2019, while batons were employed nine times, Tasers in 58 cases and pepper spray on 73 occasions, according to the HPD data. Of the 488 incidents involving firearm use or display, police fired their weapons in only nine instances.
Officials emphasized that in more than 72% of force incidents over the five-year period, there were no injuries to suspects, while in 94% of incidents there were no injuries to police.
“Continued training” in dealing with people with mental health conditions and in crisis intervention, along with increased emphasis on de-escalation, were among the measures HPD is taking to address use of force trends, according to Vanic’s presentation.
Commission member and former state attorney general Doug Chin said the measures were commendable but lacking.
“These are good measures to address the trends, but they don’t feel like great measures. … When I read ‘continued’ I read that to mean the department is simply going to do exactly what they’ve been doing previously with no changes. … I don’t think that is going to be perceived by the public as good enough.”
Chin also said the measures “don’t say anything about what you’re doing to address the fact that there’s so many Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders who are having use of force used against them or being arrested. I think that would be something that would be very easy for people who are skeptical or critical of the department to really honestly jump all over and be upset about.”
Commissioners also called for greater outreach to those communities.
Commenting after the meeting, Alivado said she appreciates Ballard’s efforts to work with the commission on updating HPD’s use of force policy. While the presentation provided useful data, she said, “we still need time to digest it.”
“I think what was not there was the exact, specific things that the department may be doing to address some of these trends or the correlation with respect to what types of incidents they are using it on, who is being affected and are there more groups — we saw that there were more Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders — in these types of incidents.”
Working with HPD and the public, Alivado said the commission hopes to gain further insight into the circumstances that may trigger use of force by police.
“You always have to tie it to the social and economic pulse of the community. Is it the fact we now have a pandemic? Is it because people have less respect for police either nationally or locally? I think those things are missing and I don’t think there’s a way to pinpoint that unless you take a deeper dive into some of the cause and effect.”
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Use of force
Other points from HPD use of force report:
>> District 1, covering Downtown, Nuuanu, Makiki, Ala Moana and Kakaako, kept police the busiest in 2019, with 150,896 reports, while Wahiawa’s District 2 had the fewest at 35,568. District 1 also had the highest number of use of force incidents, 690, and District 4, including Kaneohe, Kailua and Kahuku, the fewest at 159.
>> The most use of force incidents occurred on Saturdays over the five-year period from 2015 to 2019, with Mondays seeing the fewest. Incidents most commonly occurred in the 10 p.m-to-2 a.m. time frame, while the fewest happened from 5 to 8 a.m.
>> The 20-to-29 age group was involved in the 30% of the 2019 use of force incidents.
>> Males were far more likely to be involved in force incidents than females in 2019 — 76% versus 21.6%. (Gender was unknown in 2.4% of incidents.)
>> Drugs or alcohol were involved in 58% of force incidents in 2019, increasing over the five-year period.
>> Simple assault was the most common type of incident involving use of force, followed closely by mental health, then disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and drug offenses.
>> Over the five-year period, officers increasingly encountered individuals who have resisted complying with verbal commands.
Honolulu Police Commission … by Honolulu Star-Advertiser
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