Posted on: Thursday, June 21, 2001

Editorial
When men in blue step into the gray

We've seen this scenario repeated over and over in recent years:

Honolulu police officer or officers are involved in a questionable incident. The department investigates, takes the results to the City Prosecutor's Office, which declines to press charges. Officers go back to work. End of story.

In many of those instances, we've wondered in this space:

Is that all there is? City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle has said he realizes that critics might assume that his office is siding with the Honolulu Police Department and the officer involved in a shooting because the two agencies work hand in glove. We have too much trust in both the police and the prosecutor to believe that.

But assuming the officers in question didn't commit a crime, does that necessarily mean they behaved as trained, and in a way the chief wants other officers to emulate? Couldn't their behavior have unacceptable or beyond-standard procedures without being criminal? Does the fact they weren't indicted automatically mean they should strap their weapons back on and return to duty, with nothing more said?

These questions came up again this week when the city prosecutor announced a police officer who shot and wounded a man in a construction area in Mililani in January will not be charged with any crime in connection with the incident.

The man, who was riding a motorcycle, was shot in the neck after a police officer pursuing him said he reached into a backpack for what the officer thought was a handgun. A later search showed the bag contained a cellular phone, drugs and related paraphernalia, but no weapon.

For all we know, the officer responded exactly as he was trained. He may even have acted heroically. Yet a Police Department internal affairs report, a statement from the wounded motorcyclist and a report by the prosecutor's office exist and no doubt would clearly illuminate this now unnecessarily shadowy case — and many more cases like it.

This adds up to a serious credibility problem for HPD. It argues, with some urgency, for more openness.