Posted on: Thursday, July 22, 2004

Police chief candidates cut to nine

By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer

The list of candidates to succeed Lee Donohue as chief of the Honolulu Police Department has been cut to nine as the search for the city's next top cop enters the final stages.

On June 26, 13 applicants, all from HPD, took a written assessment, the results of which were received by the Police Commission yesterday.

Based on the test scores, four candidates were cut from the list. Terry Eisenberg, a San Diego-based consultant hired to help with the search, delivered the test results to the commission.

Ron Taketa, chairman of the Honolulu Police Commission, said a new chief will be named at the end of August.

The assessment phase will take place Aug. 10-11. During that segment of the selection process, Eisenberg and a group of community members will assess each candidate's performance in a series of exercises, and another cut will be made.

The assessment phase is made up of four components, one of which is a simulation that requires the candidate to react to a police scenario as if he were chief.

"Based on how they did in the real-life scenarios the commission will reduce the nine (candidates) down to a smaller number," Eisenberg said.

Yesterday, the commission accepted a list of seven community members from which three will be picked to act as assessors during the assessment phase. The three community members will be paired with one Mainland law enforcement expert, selected by Eisenberg, to form the outside assessment group.

Taketa, the chairman, said there is no hard and fast number for the next cut, but said the number of candidates could be between three and five.

"We want the best candidates to go on to the next phase," he said.

Reach Peter Boylan at 535-8110 or pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.