Three Honolulu Police Department officers awaiting trial for allegedly causing a high-speed chase and crash and covering it up in Makaha in September 2021 were fired by the department.
On Sept. 12, 2021, officers Joshua J.S. Nahulu, 37, Erik X.K. Smith, 25, and Jake R.T. Bartolome, 35, allegedly engaged in a high-speed pursuit of a car filled with six partyers from a beach park in Makaha.
“After an internal administrative investigation, Officers Joshua Nahulu, Erik Smith and Jake Bartolome were discharged earlier this month,” said Michelle Yu, an HPD spokesperson, in a statement.
Robert Cavaco, president of the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, said it is SHOPO’s duty to represent all of its members in the administrative discipline process in a professional manner and in good faith.
“As such, we are going to reserve comment on case specifics at this time,” he said. “In the meantime, SHOPO will continue to provide the same high- quality representation to these officers as we’ve done for officers in the past and will do so for officers in the future.”
All three filed grievances against the department, and their termination is not final.
Nahulu is charged with collisions involving death or serious bodily injury for allegedly causing the crash near the corner of Farrington Highway and Orange Street, in which a teenager was paralyzed and the driver of a white, four-door 2000 Honda Civic was left with a traumatic brain injury.
Nahulu faces a Class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
A fourth officer not named in the pending civil matters, Robert G. Lewis III, whose age was not released, also faces criminal charges in connection with the crash and cover-up.
Smith, Bartolome and Lewis are charged with hindering prosecution in the first degree, a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison. They were also charged with conspiracy to commit hindering prosecution in the first degree, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.
All four entered not-guilty pleas March 23 and go to trial June 3.
Nahulu’s attorney, Richard Sing, declined comment. Bartolome’s attorney, Pedric T. Arrisgado, and Smith’s attorney, Doris D. Lum, did not respond to Honolulu Star-Advertiser requests for comment.
On that early September morning in 2021, a car driven by Jonaven Perkins- Sinapati crashed, throwing some of the occupants from the car.
The officers allegedly drove away without stopping to help. They allegedly did not use their sirens or blue lights while in pursuit. They returned to the scene of the accident after being dispatched by 911.
Upon arriving on-scene, they allegedly acted like they had no idea what happened.
Attorneys in a civil suit against the city allege that Nahulu had a long-running feud with Perkins-Sinapati, driver of the Civic, which had six people in it when it crashed. Perkins- Sinapati suffered brain damage, was on life support after the crash and is pursuing a civil action against the officers.
Another passenger that morning was Dayton Gouveia, 14 at the time of the crash. He was paralyzed for months from the neck down, and doctors estimate in a separate civil suit the health care services he will need throughout his life will cost about $7 million.
Gouveia is working through depression and has permanent nerve damage and injuries to his neck and back that have led to mobility and balance issues and problems with internal functions.
Four other passengers who sustained injuries in the early morning crash recently settled with the city for $4.5 million. Those passengers were 17, 18, 20 and 21 at the time of the crash.
Others disciplined
Lewis was suspended in 2023 for three days for failing to “activate his body-worn camera (BWC) when he responded to a call for a noise complaint” and after “arriving at the scene of the motor vehicle collision” and when he interacted with a witness. Lewis also didn’t “document in his submitted report the facts and circumstances of the initial encounter with the suspect vehicle and/or the initiation of the pursuit by police officers.”
He also hid the police officers’ involvement in “the pursuit that was a proximate cause of the MVC and the officers’ involvement in fleeing from the scene.”
Officer Rommel Baysa is grieving a seven-day suspension, and officer Wade Thomas-Nakagawa is in grievance proceedings over a five-day suspension in connection with the 2021 Makaha chase, crash and cover-up.
Baysa and Thomas- Nakagawa failed to “make notification that officers were involved in a critical incident” and didn’t ensure that the body-worn cameras of the involved officers were promptly recovered and that the officers were promptly relieved and sequestered.
Both officers didn’t “conduct a thorough inquiry into a witness’s statement that the suspect vehicle was being pursued by police vehicles at the time of the motor vehicle collision,” and their lack of supervision of subordinate officers at the scene resulted “in an improper and/or incomplete investigation of the incident being conducted” and helped “investigating officers to conceal the police officers’ involvement in Makaha incident.”
Thomas-Nakagawa also used force “against a male at the scene and did not document it in an incident report form.”
Officer Fetia Solomon is grieving a three-day suspension she received for her role in the Makaha case.
Solomon didn’t tell “supervisors and investigators at the scene that a witness was alleging police involvement in the crash that happened after the police pursuit.”
Solomon also didn’t get a “complete and thorough statement from the witness and failed to document the witness’s statement and/or contact information in her submitted police report.”
Solomon also submitted a collision report that left out the officers’ involvement, and she covered her body-worn camera to hide an encounter with a witness.
Solomon also “concealed the police officers’ involvement in the pursuit and the officers’ involvement in fleeing from the scene.”
