Police chief was aware of problems within elite unit

By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer

Honolulu Police Chief Lee Donohue was troubled by reports that FBI agents did not trust police detectives assigned to the elite Criminal Intelligence Unit.

Chief Lee Donohue says whistleblower Kenneth Kamakana was "not a team player." Advertiser library photo

Donohue said he discussed the subject with Myron Fuller, who was special agent in charge of the FBI's Hawai'i office.

"My concern as the chief is if you don't have trust in us, then maybe we shouldn't be working together," Donohue said he told Fuller.

The FBI man said he knew of no specific trust issues between the police and FBI, but that his agents told him that distrust of and dissension within the Criminal Intelligence Unit had been a problem for years, according to Donohue.

Questions about how much trust law enforcement officials have for each other while they put their lives in jeopardy, and how officers who report problems will be treated, are at the heart of a federal lawsuit in which Detective Kenneth Kamakana alleges that some Honolulu police officers are inappropriately close to organized crime figures.

Donohue said his son learned during a stakeout that FBI agents had problems with the Criminal Intelligence Unit, which investigates organized crime and reports to the chief.

"He just told me that they were out on a surveillance with the FBI, and that one of the agents had mentioned this trust factor, that there was people that don't trust personnel assigned to CIU," Donohue said, according to a heavily redacted transcript of the deposition.

He said he didn't ask for specifics that could have pinned the problem down.

"I didn't want to know the name of the agent, I was just, naturally, I was perturbed that, you know, in finding this out," Donohue continued. "So I wanted to find out from, from the boss of the FBI is there a trust, trust factor here."

"So you never asked your son who the agent was that said this?" attorney Mark Bennett asked Donohue.

"No, no," the chief replied.

Bennett: "And you never asked your son who it was that wasn't trusted?"

Donohue: "No. I just wanted to find out was there an issue with trust."

Donohue said he and Fuller talked at length about the problem but came to no real conclusions.

"If I didn't have any more information than what I had, he, he wouldn't be able to further his investigation on this," Donohue said. "So I said, well, why don't we just leave it like this, because, you know, I always felt that we had a good working relationship with the FBI. And that was basically the gist of the conversation."

Donohue said he wanted badly for the CIU to work together as a team, but that Kamakana had repeatedly clashed with the unit's leaders, Capt. Alvin Nishimura and then-Lt. Milton Olmos, who requested that Kamakana be transferred out of the group. Olmos was later named acting captain of the department when Nishimura left.

"And I agreed with him, because he was just not a team player," Donohue said of Kamakana.

Donohue said he was told that Kamakana threatened to beat up Nishimura and had countermanded orders Olmos gave to another officer.

Kamakana alleges that he was removed from the unit because he provided the FBI with secret tapes of an interview that Olmos and CIU Detective Alexander Ahlo conducted with a defendant in a federal gambling probe while drinking at a hostess bar. The FBI had warned them that interviewing indicted suspect Marirose Tangi without her attorney present could jeopardize the case.

On the tapes, Tangi described Ahlo as the "best friend" of another defendant in the probe, Gabriel Aio, who was accused of paying $80,000 in "protection money" bribes to an undercover police officer posing as a corrupt officer. Ahlo was asked under oath about his relationship with Aio, but his responses were heavily edited in the documents that were released to The Advertiser.

Kamakana and an FBI agent later removed secret documents related to organized crime investigations from police headquarters without permission from Kamakana's superiors.

Donohue said he had never asked the FBI to return the files because he had divorced himself from the issue as a result of the lawsuit.

He later agreed that HPD officers have the right to report alleged misconduct within the department to federal authorities, and that it would be illegal for the department to retaliate against a whistleblower.

But Donohue said the department had no formal policy regarding the Hawai'i Whistleblowers Protection Act and no specific order forbidding retaliation against whistleblowers.

Bennett: "Are you familiar with the term 'blue wall of silence?' "

Donohue: "Yes."

Bennett: "And you've heard that term prior to the depositions in this case?"

Donohue: "Yes."

Bennett: "Do you have an understanding of what the term means?"

Donohue: "I think it, it refers to a code of silence amongst police officers."

Bennett: "Have you ever found that code of silence to exist?"

Donohue: "In the Honolulu Police Department?"

Bennett: "Yes."

Donohue: "Not that I can remember."

The chief then corrected himself, according to the transcript.

"On isolated occasion," he said.