Details of 2019 Maui jail riot that caused $5.3 million in damage still being withheld

Two and a half years after a riot at the Maui jail caused $5.3 million in damage, the Department of Public Safety still hasn’t released its investigation into the uprising, leaving the public largely in the dark as to what exactly happened that day and whether the agency has addressed the reasons it took 3-1/2 hours to contain the mayhem.

In 2019, amid intensifying political pressure, public safety officials indicated the report, which was completed that year, would eventually be released. But when the Honolulu Star-Advertiser filed a public-records request for the document this year, DPS initially told the newspaper it would have to pay $770 in costs, before denying the request outright.

DPS now says it’s continuing to withhold the report because the Maui County prosecutor’s office might bring criminal charges in connection with the March 11, 2019, riot at the Maui Community Correctional Center in Wailuku.

Wookie Kim, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, said DPS’ rejection of the records request fits into a pattern of obfuscation by the department and that government officials too often use the excuse of an ongoing investigation to withhold public information.

“Given what we know about the way DPS has tried to hide things that would raise alarm bells from the broader community, I think we have a strong reason to be very suspicious of their reported basis for not sharing the report,” he said.

In the weeks after the incident, inmates and corrections officers began leaking information to the news media about the severity of the uprising, which DPS was describing in news releases as “a disturbance.” They said both inmates and staff at the jail feared for their lives as smoke from a fire ignited by an inmate began filling cells.

Former DPS Director Nolan Espinda briefed lawmakers in August 2019 on the findings of the department’s investigation, saying the riot began before 3 p.m. March 11 when about half of the inmates in one of the modules began staging a peaceful protest.

The jail had long suffered from overcrowding, and inmates were locked up four to a cell in cells designed to hold just two people.

A supervisor told the inmates they had 10 minutes before lockdown, but corrections officers weren’t actually prepared to enforce that ultimatum and inmates soon began covering windows, destroying furniture, breaking sprinkler heads and flooding the module, Espinda told lawmakers.

An inmate lit a roll of toilet paper and other combustible products on fire and threw them into the guard station, forcing officers to flee. The riot expanded to another module, and inmates began breaking windows.

Espinda said overcrowding, broken phones, little recreational time and no-contact visits spurred the riot.

It’s not clear what else is detailed in the 300-page investigative report.

The Star-Advertiser filed a public-records request for the report in February. Under the state’s public- records law, government agencies have 10 business days to disclose requested records unless there are extenuating circumstances, in which case the agency must provide a notice to the requester within 20 business days and begin disclosing the public portions within five business days.

In July, DPS told the Star-Advertiser the report had been under review for the past four months and that it would be forthcoming. “We will send the final product to you as soon as review is completed,” DPS’ Office of the Director told the Star-Advertiser on July 14.

But the report never came. In late August, after enlisting the assistance of the state’s Office of Information Practices, which trains government agencies on their legal responsibilities under the state’s public-records law, DPS told the newspaper it would have to pay $770 if it wanted the report.

DPS said it would take staff 40 hours to redact the document, removing information that “falls under legal privacy interests as well as operational security.”

A month later Laurie Nadamoto, litigation coordination officer for DPS, reversed that determination, saying the report would not be provided at all because the Maui Department of the Prosecuting Attorney was considering filing criminal charges related to the riot.

It’s not clear what charges are being considered and against whom. Maui County Prosecutor Andrew Martin said the reports on the riot were sent back to the Maui Police Department for further investigation.

In November 2019, 18 inmates were found guilty through a DPS administrative process for instigating or participating in the March 11 riot and were assessed fines of $1,358 to $2,716. At the time, DPS said the next step was to consider potential criminal charges.

Martin didn’t respond to questions about whether the potential criminal charges now being referenced relate to these inmates or why charges are being considered after so much time has passed.

DPS declined to comment further on the records request and didn’t respond to a question about whether it intends to ever make the report public.

Attorney Jeff Portnoy, who specializes in First Amendment cases and has represented local media organizations including the Star-Advertiser, said the agency’s initial contention that it would take 40 hours to redact the document was “absurd.” But he said it was a gray area as to whether DPS could withhold the document based on potential criminal charges.

DPS has long been criticized for a lack of transparency and its hostility toward requests for public records. In 2019 the department told the Star-Advertiser it would cost $1 million to release data pertaining to the long- standing problem of keeping inmates locked up beyond their scheduled release dates.

The department is currently being sued by Civil Beat for refusing to release information about inmates who die in its custody.

The ACLU’s Kim said the difficulty in getting the report on the 2019 Maui riot is “par for the course” when it comes to trying to get information from DPS, and that its withholding of information in general makes it difficult to hold the agency accountable.

“One way to get closer to that accountability is knowing what is going on inside the prison walls,” he said. “And when DPS continues to withhold information that the public, the communities, the family members of those inside, that they deserve to know, that is a huge problem, and we at the ACLU remain tremendously concerned because this is definitely not a good look for DPS.”