Assaults on police to result in swift charges

Reversing a policy in place for decades, Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm is amending criteria tied to imposing charges so that anyone who allegedly assaults a law enforcement officer will be charged quickly.

The move comes in the wake of a fatal assault on Kapolei Police Station grounds in February that some argue could have been prevented had the suspect not been released after allegedly punching a police officer the night before.

Alm told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that a list of criteria for immediate lock-up cases involving the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Screening and Intake Division will be amended to include all assaults on law enforcement officers. The change, effective immediately, came after Alm met Monday with the leadership of the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers.

Describing the matter as a “longstanding concern” at the Honolulu Police Department, Alm said in a statement that his department is seeking additional city funding to hire more deputy prosecutors, “which will allow us to do more immediate charging of felony suspects.”

He added, “I intend to expand that division by several deputies by the end of the year. This will allow more cases to be immediately charged and allow a faster turnaround in other cases.”

SHOPO President Robert Cavaco told the Star-Advertiser that the union is “appreciative” of Alm’s decision to amend policy.

“The recent tragic murder of Linda Johnson, outside of the Kapolei police station, is a stark reminder to all of us in the law enforcement profession that we must collectively do everything within our power to keep dangerous and unstable criminals off of our streets. This is a step in the right direction,” said Cavaco.

Interim HPD Chief Rade Vanic also lauded the amendment. In a statement to the Star-Advertiser, he said, “We support expedited charging for suspects in cases involving assaults on law enforcement officers. It reflects the seriousness of the crime and sends an important message.”

In the case of the Feb. 15 fatal assault, police officers had twice sought unsuccessfully to keep Michael Kalama Armstrong, who was accused of attacking a police officer a day earlier, in custody before he was released pending investigation. Shortly after Armstrong was released, the 35-year-old man, who had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, allegedly beat Johnson, 48, with a tree trunk pulled from the grounds at the Kapolei station.

A deputy in the prosecuting attorney’s Screening and Intake Division declined to immediately charge Armstrong with a felony Feb. 14 after he allegedly punched a uniformed police officer in the head at a Mililani group home. The officer, an HPD corporal, had been responding to a call from a female staff member who alleged Armstrong attacked her.

The screening deputy allegedly told the HPD detective assigned to the case that rather than signing a felony complaint, the deputy planned to charge Armstrong, who had 18 prior arrests, with misdemeanor assault in the third degree. The detective appealed to his lieutenant, who unsuccessfully pushed for Armstrong to be charged with felony assault of a law enforcement officer, according to sources.

Further complicating the matter, the deputy prosecuting attorney who oversees SID disagreed. While that attorney maintained that a felony charge was in order, the deputy was not authorized to force a colleague to charge a case. And if he had reassigned the case to another deputy, the 48-hour window to charge Armstrong would have closed before all evidence linked to the Feb. 14 assault at the group home in Mililani had been reviewed.

The SID supervisor reached out to the major in charge of HPD’s Criminal Investigation Division and relayed a plan to release Armstrong pending investigation, with the expected upshot taking the case for felony assault of a law enforcement officer to a grand jury. The major agreed to the strategy, Alm said.

“While there may have been disagreement between the HPD detective and the deputy prosecutor conferring the case, HPD and the Department ultimately agreed to release Armstrong pending the further investigation needed to support a felony charge against him,” said Alm.

Armstrong was arrested at 9:45 p.m. Feb. 14 and released from custody at 6:33 p.m. the next day. Patrol officers responded to a 911 call at 7:30 p.m. about a man standing over a woman on the station’s grounds on Kamokila Boulevard. The responding officers found Johnson badly beaten and unconscious. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead.

At the time of his arrest, Armstrong did not meet criteria for immediate charging, according to Alm’s office. He did not meet the definition of a “dangerous person” or a major offender, and was not found to be transient since he had a confirmed local address and was under the supervision of the 3rd Circuit Court.

In 2020, during the lockdown period of the COVID- 19 pandemic, the offense of officer assault was temporarily on the list of crimes to be charged immediately as part of an effort to to help protect HPD officers enforcing the state’s emergency orders.

Michelle Yu, an HPD spokesperson, said the department’s Professional Standards Office is now reviewing the Feb. 15 accounts to “provide better clarity as to what actions were taken that night.”

According to HPD, there are 50 to 60 cases of first­-degree assault on law enforcement officers and more than two dozen second-­degree assaults on officers annually. Additionally, the department said, there are about a dozen cases of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer each year.

Over the past five years, Alm said, city prosecutors charged upward of 88% of all felony assaults against police officers that were referred by HPD.

This year, as of Feb. 25, of four cases of felony assault against a police officer referred to by HPD, Alm’s office filed felony charges in three, with one pending further investigation. Alm said the city’s Prosecuting Attorney Department “has been and remains committed” to holding accountable those who assault our police officers. However, some cases are more complicated than others.

“We need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew the victim was a police officer at the time of the offense,” said Alm.

“In most cases, the defendant assaults a police officer while being placed under arrest, which makes it much easier to prove that the defendant knew the victim was a law enforcement officer. But in situations where the suspect and the officer have not had any previous contact, more investigation may be required, particularly when the case happens at night in a location where lighting is an issue.”