EDITORIAL
Chief Donohue leaves fine record to build on

Honolulu's next police chief will take over a department that has been ably and honestly run by Chief Lee Donohue.

Donohue will retire with a deserved reputation as a cop's chief. Having risen from patrol duty through the ranks, Donohue never lost his concern for the welfare and safety of his rank and file.

He said it was time to retire because his goals had been accomplished, including completion of a national accreditation process that rated HPD among la creme de la creme.

Donohue's tenure saw a heavy exodus of local officers to places like Las Vegas and Seattle. That wasn't Donohue's fault, but that of politicians who haven't found the means to make wages at HPD competitive.

But it is to Donohue's credit that, where at one point there were 400 vacancies, today there are 250 vacancies with 220 recruits in training.

Assuredly the HPD has not been free of problems during Donohue's tenure. He personally faced disturbing allegations of wrongdoing in a federal lawsuit, recently settled, by veteran intelligence officer Kenneth Kamakana. And two ranking officers were convicted in a police cellblock food scam case in which an estimated $21,000 in food funds meant for prisoners was diverted to high-class kaukau for cops.

In sum, however, Donohue achieved an admirable record that the next chief can and should build upon.

The rare scandals that erupted during his tenure, however, suggest one area where we'd like to see the next chief break from Donohue's path. That's in the arena of openness.

Chief Donohue (and his predecessor, Michael Nakamura) believed, for sincere reasons, that there should be limits on the amount of information that flows out of the department. That approach covered everything from details of ongoing criminal investigations to key information about discipline of police officers.

This system, which Donohue accepted, made it easier for embarrassing or important information to be concealed if someone in his command had the desire to do so.

Indeed, lack of transparency at the HPD has often meant that exposure could only come when frustrated police officers themselves became whistle-blowers.

Discipline and loyalty in the ranks are important to a police force. Anyone who comes up through the system holds those values high.

But the force is accountable to the public, and the chief must be more than just another man in blue.

The Honolulu Police Commission should consider that it's been years since the HPD has had a chief with a strong record of openness, so it may be hard to find an individual with this quality locally.

We hope the commission will be open-minded about considering applications from those Mainland departments where accountability and openness have become watchwords.