HPD’s 2 deputy chiefs intend to give up posts
Taysia Gaspar, middle, sat with friend Kylie Cates, left, and boyfriend Andrew Boyett at a candlelight vigil during yesterday’s memorial service honoring Honolulu Police Department officers killed in the line of duty. Gaspar’s father, Glen A. Gaspar, was fatally shot in 2003. Participants also marched from the Honolulu Police Department headquarters to the state Capitol.
The UH-Manoa School of Architecture design team poses next to the model of their design for the Hawaii Law Enforcement Memorial.
Both deputy chiefs in the Honolulu Police Department will step down from their posts at the end of the month, the two men said last night.
Deputy Chief Delbert Tatsuyama will retire, while Deputy Chief Randy Macadangdang will return to being one of several assistant chiefs.
Several sources said Assistant Chief Dave Kajihiro and Maj. Marie McCauley will replace them, making McCauley HPD’s first female deputy chief.
Tatsuyama has been in the news following his son’s arrest last week for an alleged theft at the Nordstrom Ala Moana store, but sources said the 31-year HPD veteran had been planning to retire for a while. "I’ve had a good career," he said after last night’s Police Week ceremony for fallen officers.
Macadangdang, who will make 28 years on the force in August, would make more pay as an assistant, whose salaries are tied to collectively bargained pay of lower-ranking officers. Various factors went into his decision to return to the rank of assistant chief, he said last night. Both Macadangdang and Tatsuyama were assistant chiefs at the end of 2009 when then newly appointed Police Chief Louis Kealoha tapped them to be his top deputies.
At sunset yesterday several hundred officers made the two-block march from HPD headquarters on Alapai Street to the state Capitol. In a solemn ceremony at the Capitol courtyard, an HPD officer lit a candle as each of the names of the 42 HPD officers killed in the line of duty since 1903 was read.
Renee Gaspar said daughter Kiana Gaspar still remembers that day in March 2003 when her basketball practice was halted abruptly and her life was shattered at the news that her father, Glen Gaspar, had been shot and killed by a suspect he was trying to subdue at the Kapolei Shopping Center.
Earlier yesterday, Gov. Neil Abercrombie led a groundbreaking Diamond Head of the Kalanimoku Building for the Hawaii Law Enforcement Memorial. A nonprofit must raise $1 million to build the memorial, which is intended to honor all 60 law enforcement officers in the state who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
