2022-12-13 Police Commission Regular Minutes

Home

Hawaii Police Commission Special Meeting Minutes December 13, 2022 Page 5 thing is the training, being a weaponless defense instructor, he's constantly asked by officers who are under the gun because they may have used the wrong or unreasonable amount of force per the department. It's not their fault that they're not being trained to current trends. A lot of the techniques that they were trained in have been done away with by this department and now they're being held liable for the techniques that they used, but they were never given the opportunity to get re-trained. He stated that they would like to see is a transparent promotion process. They want transparency and they want change. • Charles Kable provided testimony via Zoom on behalf of Edward Ignacio's candidacy. He's the director of the terrorist screening center and has been an FBI agent for 22 years. He made it clear that he was speaking in his personal capacity and not on behalf of the FBI. He has known Mr. Ignacio for over 22 years. He explained his ability to lead, stating during his first assignment out of the FBI academy fellow agents bought into his leadership while operating undercover. His peers at the engineering resource facility in Quantico Virginia bought into his leadership during his two-plus years leading law enforcement communication strategies impacting federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies across the country. While promoted to be the joint terrorism task force supervisor in the Honolulu field office, he had the buy-in from the special agent in charge on down because of his ability to effectively engage with other federal agencies. He's stated he's a local guy that understands the issues in the community, as do the other candidates, but what separates him from the rest of the pool was his willingness to leave Hawaii, get different perspectives and experiences, and incorporate them into his leadership contributions back home in Hawaii. He spoke about Mr. Ignacio's commitment to Hawaii's law enforcement memorial effort over the last ten years. He explained that Mr. Ignacio is a board member and fundraiser for the foundation. He developed numerous strong working relationships, and earned their buy-in to raise funds to design, erect, and sustain a memorial for fallen officers. He further stated that it didn't exist before 2016, that was done during his off time, imagine what he can do for your community as your next chief of police. • Chad Taniyama came before the commission. He stated that he's been a police officer for 25 years. He thought long and hard about coming today. Depending on what you say here, it could affect his career, but if he didn't come forward and tell the truth, he would regret it later knowing that he let down his brothers and sisters in blue. He explained that he's at 25 years, he's at the end of his career, and if he feels there's retaliation, he can punch out, but a younger officer can't, he would have to endure that. He stated that the Hawaii Police Department has been stuck in the mud for years. They're held together by band-aids because the upper management has failed. They failed to look at the future. You talk about training and retention, it's non-existent. The people who have the influence and the power to make change have not. In 2018, they paid the ultimate price and there was no change. The candidates here all seem like nice people, but let's take an honest look. There's an individual who spent a year with their police department then he transferred and went to a slower and smaller police