Whenever there’s an incident of police-involved shootings or any other form that “use of force” takes, the natural response is to wonder how it happened — and whether it could have been avoided.

It’s the Honolulu Police Commission’s job to take notice of these things, and to direct any needed changes in policy that cases suggest. So it’s fitting that the panel is pressing for answers about disproportionate numbers of police run-ins here with the Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and Black communities.

It’s the next step that’s critical: finding the root problems and addressing them.

Racial disparities in police encounters have been a recurrent theme in police studies nationally, an issue that has loomed especially large in stories about the Black Lives Matter movement over the past year.

Surely racism is a factor that can’t be ignored locally, but neither should it overwhelm a careful analysis of the cases in question. Policing problems in Hawaii are nuanced and when violence erupts, social ills such as poverty and substance abuse play a significant role.

Last week, the commission was given Honolulu Police Department data showing that Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders were involved in 34.5% of all the force incidents in 2019, as well as 38% of all arrests, even though they comprise only 23% of Oahu’s population. (Blacks were involved in 7.4% of force cases and 5.2% of arrests, not a wide misalignment from the 4.2% Black population within the city and county.)   

The Native Hawaiian and Pacific islander figures, in particular, are worrisome — use of police force on Oahu is on the rise overall — and patterns suggested in national statistics deserve a look.

Myriad U.S. studies point to the same conclusion: People of color are killed by police at a rate disproportionate to their share of the population.

One August 2019 report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that “African American men and women, American Indian/Alaska Native men and women, and Latino men face higher lifetime risk of being killed by police than do their white peers.”

Does this translate to the Honolulu experience? Not exactly, says Police Chief Susan Ballard, who has been defending HPD on this score often since her appointment in 2017.

Last week’s report was her most recent rebuttal of the racism charge.

In her own statement on Friday, Ballard said officers are trained in “cultural awareness, hate crimes and implicit bias.” The number of cases involving force is less than half of 1% of HPD’s total reports, she added. She has acknowledged earlier that racial stereotypes do play a part in Hawaii, but likely less so than elsewhere.

She has a point. Honolulu’s racial diversity is relatively well mirrored in its police force; a demographic disconnect between officers and those they police is more plainly the problem on the mainland.

In addition to data in the report, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser received worrisome figures from HPD showing that of eight officer-involved fatalities in 2019, seven of the victims were either Native Hawaiian, part Hawaiian or Samoan.

It’s noteworthy that all but one of them were found to have used methamphetamine, according to HPD. Drug use, mental illness and poverty commonly factor into these cases and must be addressed. HPD patrol units have been working more closely with social service agencies on the front lines, and the success or failure of this approach needs careful study.

Also, HPD must supply information to the commission on the background of officers involved in use-of-force incidents — such as gender, race, age, years and experience with HPD, and red-flag work history.

By itself, the raw data on use of force is concerning, but a deeper probe into any gaps in the officers’ preparedness is warranted. The commission has to be clear on the problems afflicting Oahu policing before finding a solution that fits this city.