Short takes, outtakes, our takes and other stuff you should know about public information, government accountability and ethical leadership in Hawai’i.
Welcome to the Twilight Zone: Here’s a real government accountability head-scratcher and you probably won’t be surprised to hear it’s from the Honolulu Police Commission.
The commission’s last meeting featured a presentation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, more commonly called CALEA, a private organization that makes a ton of money certifying that police departments like Honolulu’s meet more than 400 standards. Although police agencies across the country are moving away from CALEA accreditation (only about 800 of the 18,000 police agencies around the country are CALEA-accredited), Honolulu is not and is in the midst of its every-four-years reaccreditation process.
The problem: HPD makes it very hard for the public to actually see what sort of best practices the department is allegedly complying with. And as it turns out, some good old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting suggests, you’ll be shocked to hear, HPD is just wrong.
First, the Police Commission meeting. Testifier Jahan Byrne briefly walked commissioners through his effort to review the CALEA standards and submit public comment.
Byrne, longtime Civil Beat readers may remember, was one of the University of Hawaiʻi journalism students who in the 1990s forced HPD to turn over police misconduct records in a case the students took all the way to the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court. (You can read all about it in our 2013 series, “In The Name Of The Law.”)
Byrne is still watchdogging the cops and testified (via the Police Commission’s archaic telephone call system) that he had terrible trouble getting access to the CALEA standards.
“They’re now in process of soliciting public feedback but only giving three days to review the accreditation and to do that you have to come to (the main police headquarters), sign in, be escorted to the PSO office, review the documents in person and you can’t make a copy and you can’t take notes,” he told the commissioners.
Byrne pointed out that CALEA is a private organization and shouldn’t be allowed to sidestep the public records law, meaning that people should be allowed to make a copy of the standards.
“If someone can’t make it to the station or is disabled, you’re out of luck,” he said.
The Sunshine Blog isn’t sure that would even make a difference. As Interim Police Chief Rade Vanic told the Police Commission, the standards are secret to begin with.
“You can go on the CALEA website and you can actually see all of the different titles of what the standards are, but you can’t actually … see all of the what the actual standards — the definitions of each standards — are because it’s my understanding that they are proprietary,” Vanic said.
So The Blog was most interested in what the CALEA reps who attended the meeting might have had to say about all this. Except they actually refused to say anything about it.
After commission vice chair Jeannine Souki noted that Byrne had raised a lot of questions, CALEA’s Michael Bussiere (a Texas cop) began his presentation by saying: “Just so you know we won’t be answering any questions. Because we ask the questions.”
Answering questions would be up to the chief, he said.
Yikes.
And so it fell to HPD’s Lt. Daniel Chu, the department’s accreditation manager for CALEA standards, to try to explain why the public is shut out of what the department considers to be such an important review, spending thousands of taxpayer dollars to achieve accreditation.
Chu reiterated that the department’s hands are tied. HPD can’t do much beyond, as Byrne pointed out, let the public look at documents for a brief time. No copying, no photographing, no video recording of the documents.
“The standards actually belong to CALEA,” Chu insisted.
“CALEA is not going to release all of their standards to anyone who asks. It’s kind of up to them. It’s their property,” he said.
This actually prompted some police commissioners to question whether the public was being wrongly shut out of being able to check up on the policies and practices of its police department.
“Well, I’m struggling to see how the public can actually give feedback on something when the access is so difficult to reach,” Commissioner Chris Magnus, a veteran former police chief, said. “It seems like that runs counterintuitive for me to be able to make feedback on things when you don’t even know what the standards are.”
He and Commissioner Blake Parsons suggested the commission just ask CALEA — but apparently not the two reps sitting in front of them — to hand over the standards. Or, as Magnus said, get the Office of Information Practices involved.
Or do as we did — send a reporter to the police department.
That’s how Civil Beat’s Caitlin Thompson found herself sitting in an HPD office for an hour and a half, looking at the standards binder and being watched the entire time first by a major and then a lieutenant, she tells The Blog.
Then she called CALEA and spoke with Mark Mosier, the regional program manager for Pacific/Pacific Northwest & Rocky Mountain, who seems to think that HPD is simply wrong.
CALEA says nope, their standards are not copyrighted, Thompson says. There’s nothing to prevent HPD from sharing them digitally or from people taking photos of the binder. And if people want a digital copy, all CALEA needs is their email and they can get temporary remote access.
“Our standards manuals are not copyrighted,” Mosier said. “We did that on purpose because we are a nonprofit organization out solely to help law enforcement, public safety for doing the right thing, and we do not want to copyright them and keep those under wraps. We want people to see them.”
So why doesn’t HPD seem to know this?
“Probably because Daniel Chu never really had a huge request for people to look at those things, and maybe it sort of caught him off guard,” Mosier pontificated. “All of our accreditation managers may not know the totality of the level of ability to give the public the information because they never asked and it sort of catches them off guard, and they think it’s more private than it really is. I don’t know.”
In a follow-up email conversation of sorts with HPD, Chu says he also spoke with Mosier who suggested anyone wanting to closely scrutinize the standards should go through CALEA directly.
“In our conversation, he maintained that HPD should not publish or post the standards for public availability,” Chu said via email.
The Blog is hoping that the Police Commission will actually get to the bottom of this one.
Better yet would be if the state would finally fully implement the statewide Law Enforcement Standards Board, which the Legislature put in place in 2018 but has never been given the money for staff or to carry out its mandate of crafting standards applicable to all law enforcement in Hawaiʻi and enforce them with the authority to certify and de-certify law enforcement officers.
Hawaiʻi is the only state without a police officer standards and training board, or POST, as it’s called elsewhere. Our version was reluctantly signed into law by Gov. David Ige over the objections of, you guessed it, the police union and most police departments, after problems with police misconduct became more and more apparent. One fired HPD officer, Ethan Ferguson, quickly got a job as a Department of Land and Natural Resources cop where he sexually assaulted a young woman he’d detained.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that eight years later there is still no standards in place or process to remove bad cops without the union’s blessing (which does not happen often, as we know.) In fact, there’s a move afoot to delay even further. Senate Bill 2519, which is up for a hearing this week, extends the deadline for the standards to be in place from 2026 to 2028.
War of the worlds: As U.S. and Israeli missiles struck strategic targets in Iran over the weekend, Hawaiʻi’s congressional delegation blasted the military action and Trump administration. For the record, here’s what they had to say via press releases:
Sen. Brian Schatz: “This is a war of choice and a mistake that knowingly risks the lives of U.S. service members and people in the region in the name of regime change. Had President Trump stuck to negotiations or not exited the JCPOA, this could have been avoided.
“The administration must de-escalate immediately. Congress needs to vote and make clear: we will not sign off on another needless war or repeat the deadly mistakes of the past.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono: “The President’s unilateral decision to strike Iran for purposes of regime change is a clear violation of the Constitution, which gives Congress, not the President, the sole power to declare war. What’s more, this President has not articulated a clear strategy for what comes next. I fear that he is recklessly putting the lives of our servicemembers and personnel in the region at risk. Today, my thoughts are with American servicemembers and personnel and their loved ones, as we work to ensure their safety and avoid a broader conflict. With President Trump dragging our country toward yet another endless war in the Middle East, it’s critical that Congress immediately votes on Senator Kaine’s War Powers Resolution to reassert our constitutional authority and prevent further escalation.”
Rep. Ed Case: “Our Constitution and laws say that a President cannot take our country to war without Congressional authorization unless there’s an imminent threat to our country and then only for a limited period subject to Congressional approval. History teaches us that the grave risks and consequences of war are too great to allow any President to ignore these foundational checks and balances and act unilaterally.
“Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them against us, and so there may be circumstances under which war would be our only option. But as there has been no demonstration of an imminent threat to our country, this action is not authorized and that cannot be ignored.
“The President must fully explain to Congress and the American people the imminent threat we face justifying this action and the specific case for war. Congress must reconvene now to obtain all of the facts and vote to continue or end this military action.
“We all pray for our servicemembers in harm’s way and their families and for the innocent lives that are being lost and shattered.”
Rep. Jill Tokuda: “This morning, Americans woke to the news that our nation launched large-scale military strikes on Iran. In starting this conflict, President Trump neither sought authorization from Congress nor presented the American people with evidence of an imminent threat that would justify bypassing it. The Constitution is clear: the power to take this nation to war does not rest with one person alone.
“Instead, we are left with the President’s own acknowledgement that our service members may die in this conflict as he calls for regime change in Iran. There is no question that the brutal Iranian regime has sponsored terrorism against our country and brutally repressed its own people. But every American, especially those with loved ones serving in our military, must ask whether this President has sufficiently justified sending our troops into battle and whether he has laid out a strategy and plan that will guide this conflict toward a defined and achievable end.
“President Trump has failed on both fronts. He has not demonstrated an imminent threat to justify this conflict, nor has he laid out how and when this conflict will end.
“The human toll abroad and the economic pain at home should never be the price Americans pay for one man’s war. We deserve better than this.
How hot is that doggy in the window: Thirty-two states have laws that prohibit leaving an animal in an unattended vehicle under dangerous conditions, or provide legal protection for a person who rescues a distressed pet. That’s according to the Animal Legal and Historical Center at Michigan State University.
An animal rescue bill has surfaced in past sessions of the Hawaiʻi Legislature but not advanced, but here we go again. It’s set for a hearing in the Senate Judiciary on Wednesday and has already passed its only other committee, Senate Public Safety.
Senate Bill 3010 would allow not only law enforcement officers, animal control officers and firefighters to enter a car, truck or camper to rescue pets and be immune from legal liability, private citizens would also be allowed as long as they tried to locate the owner or were certain the pet was in danger.
According to the bill, the temperature inside a vehicle with all the windows closed can hit 89 degrees in just 10 minutes, and on a hot day rise as high as 114 degrees in the same amount of time.
Party politics: Derek Turbin lost to Jackson Sayama by a mere 183 votes in the 2020 Democratic primary contest for House District 21. It was a race that featured two other candidates and drew almost 8,000 votes.
Now, with Sayama expected to challenge Les Ihara for the Senate District 10 seat in the Aug. 8 primary, Turbin plans another run for the House. He’s scheduled a fundraiser for March 10 at Da Shop on Harding Avenue.
Turbin tells The Blog that he’ll conclude his two-year term as chair of the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi in May. At least three other Dems have pulled papers for the seat that represents St. Louis Heights, Pālolo Valley, Maunalani Heights, Wilhelmina Rise and Kaimukī on Oʻahu.
Open House: Who will take the seat just vacated by Daniel Holt, the state representative who last month left the legislative branch to work for the executive branch? Oʻahu Democratic Party district council officers will Zoom Sunday evening to pick three of the five applicants for the House District 28 seat (Sand Island, Iwilei and Chinatown).
Those contenders are Nadia Alves (recently an office manager at the House), Bob Armstrong (a transit operator for the City and County of Honolulu and longtime neighborhood board activist), Ernest D. K. Caravalho (an Air Force veteran), Anthony Alexander Nagatani (a media professional) and Michael “Cov” Ratcliffe (a labor attorney). Three names will be sent to Gov. Josh Green for his selection of a lucky winner no later than April 14.
Movin’ on up: As The Blog reported earlier, Colin McDonald, one of the federal prosecutors who helped convict former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his then-wife Katherine, is now working for President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., as the guy spearheading a new fraud division in the Department of Justice.
So Civil Beat’s Washington reporter Nick Grube, who for years reported on the public corruption investigation and trial of the Kealohas, various cops and other assorted supporting players, dropped by McDonald’s confirmation hearing Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Of course, McDonald did not disappoint and spoke about his work in Hawaiʻi, including specific mention of the Kealoha case.
When asked by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the committee’s 92-year-old chairman, what he would do to protect the elderly from fraud, McDonald brought up Florence Puana, Katherine Kealoha’s grandmother, whom the former city prosecutor was accused of bilking out of hundreds of thousands of dollars through a reverse mortgage scheme.
Although McDonald didn’t mention Puana by name, he did say it was his “distinct pleasure” to work with victims like her to bring justice to bad actors.
Puana was 99 years old when she testified against Kealoha and was a key witness for the prosecution, which secured a guilty verdict against the Kealohas and several others for the federal scandal related to framing Puana’s son for stealing a mailbox.
In reference to the elder Puana, McDonald said he had the satisfaction of “hearing her story, of believing her story, and then fighting for justice for her.”
Of course, being Washington, the hearing was fraught with partisan politics.
Some of the most pointed questions came from Democrats, who were concerned about McDonald’s impartiality given Trump’s attempts to use the DOJ to attack his perceived political enemies.
They pressed him about his work with the DOJ’s “Weaponization Working Group” that was tasked with investigating the investigators who targeted Trump after his first term and the Justice Department’s hiring of a Jan. 6, 2021 rioter who stormed the Capitol and berated police officers, including calls to “kill ’em.”
McDonald even got into some back and forth with U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, who asked McDonald a seemingly simple question: Who won the 2020 election?
“Senator, Joe Biden was certified president of the 2020 election and served four years in office,” McDonald said.
“That’s not what I asked you,” Welch said. “I asked who won it, not who was certified.”
“Senator,” McDonald replied, “I would refer to my prior answer.”
‘Ono grindz, brah: In the view of The Blog, it’s one of the best days at the Legislature every year: Ag Day at the Capitol. And last Thursday was no disappointment.
Presented by the Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau and hosted by Sens. Tim Richards and Mike Gabbard and Reps. Matthias Kusch and Cory Chun, Ag Day always packs the Capitol’s fourth floor with displays from dozens of groups from around the state promoting growing your own in the ʻāina.
Vendors this year included the Hawaiʻi Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity, Farmlovers Markets of Kailua, Kakaʻako and Pearlridge, Hawaiʻi Aquaculture and Aquaponics Association, interisland shippers Young Brothers, MA’O Organic Farms in Lualualei Valley on O’ahu, the Hawaiʻi Ag Foundation’s Young Entrepreneurs Program, Kauaʻi County Farm Bureau, DA BUX Double Up Food Bucks, UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and the Hawaiʻi Sheep and Goat Association.
Other vendors advised how to deal with pesky invasive species (“Little fire ants rely on people to move long distances”) and on what plants are required to be quarantined (“boxes of arriving cut plants are inspected for pests and disease during risk assessments”).
The Blog helped itself to a small cup of steaming Kauaʻi Coffee (“100% Hawaiian Coffee, from our ʻohana to yours”) and a forkful of Hawaiian Style Braised Beef from Kapa Hale neighborhood eatery in the Waiʻalae-Kahala district (“A modern take on Hawaiʻi Regional Cuisine”).
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