Editorial: Department of Public Safety, release Maui riot report

Initially called a “disturbance,” it became an “uprising,” and now is referred to as an all-out “riot.”

The Maui Community Correctional Center suffered $5.3 million in damage as inmates broke furniture and fire-sprinkler heads. The jail was in lockdown into the next day.

This was in March of 2019. The state Department of Public Safety completed an internal investigation soon after, but is refusing to make the report public. This does nothing to promote understanding or lessen community unease. We’re talking about a riot. The causes, responses, mitigation — all are of reasonable public concern.

In an appearance before the Legislature in August 2019, then-Public Safety Director Nolan Espinda said the riot began as a peaceful protest, involving roughly half the imates in one module of the jail. They were frustrated about overcrowding — they’d been living four to a cell, in cells designed for two — and about matters such as broken telephones and restrictions on visiting, Espinda said. When a supervisor threatened a lockdown, the situation escalated and spread to other modules, leading to flooding and broken windows. Toilet paper and other combustibles were set on fire and thrown into a guard station.

It took 3-1/2 hours to restore order.

Inmates and corrections officers have spoken up separately about the chaos, some saying they feared for their lives as smoke from the fire filled cells.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser filed a public-records request for the investigative report, only to be told by DPS that it would cost the newspaper $770, as it would take 40 staff hours to redact certain security and privacy information. Now the agency is blocking any release of the report, saying Maui prosecutors could bring criminal charges in connection with the riot. Not a good excuse, given the ability to — as previously mentioned — redact.

Before the riot, the jail was already under pressure brought by staffing shortages. It’s hard to imagine that tensions have eased much post-riot, given the additional stresses of the pandemic. That’s the problem — we’re left to imagine. We don’t know what came out in the final analysis, what fixes may have been put in place.

DPS is not known for its openness when it comes to requests for public records, which thwarts accountability. And accountability is something this agency owes — to the public, the prisoners, their families and its own staff.