2004-01-16 Police Commission Minutes

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Hawaii County Police Commission Regular Session Minutes January 16, 2004 Page 5 Commissioner de Silva stated that Commissioner Bertsch did a good job on the flowchart but did not put it in written policy form which he had requested at the previous meeting. When this is done, they should also prepare a narrative to the Mayor and Managing Director explaining the commission's oversight function and problems they have had with prior administrations. Vice Chair Manago stated that he has reservations about the flowchart. It is like having the wolf watching the hen house. When the commission was originally setup, it was an independent group of people representing the community to oversee the Police Department. Having the Police Commission use an arm of the department (IA) to investigate its officers, takes away the commission's independence from the Police Department. Commissioner Lambeth expressed concern that there have been times when an officer's statement to them was different from the statement given to IA. Vice Chair Manago clarified his interpretation of the flowchart. The flowchart showed that they would be using Internal Affairs, which is an arm of the police department, to investigate officer misconduct, instead of a private investigator. The Police Commission was set up to be a completely independent group of people representing the community. When complainants file a complaint it is important that they know that the Police Department has nothing to do with the investigation. Commissioner de Silva stated that the people that are doing the actual investigation that the Administrative Review Board is going to listen to, are the ones who do it last, and that is the Internal Affairs Unit. If they're going to investigate anyway, the commission should let them do it. The commission could then review the investigation to see if it needs any supplementation. This would serve a dual purpose, one to eliminate unnecessary expense and time and the second to perform an oversight function over the quality of the work of the IAU. He has questions about the IAU and ARB procedures. He suggested that they ask the department to provide them with all the files for the past year of the ARB procedures so that they could see for themselves what is in the files. The commission would have more of an opportunity to see that there's fairness if they do it last. He wants to be sure that the IAU is doing a fair and unbiased job, and the commission can't tell that if they do a secret investigation. Chair Hara stated that he would like to see a clear delineation between the department's investigation and the commission's investigation. As a citizen, he would like to have his case heard entirely by citizens rather than by the department, who if they wanted to, could skew the findings. There is that suspicion. Chair Hara asked Commissioners de Silva and Bertsch of the rules and policies committee to prepare the written procedures. Commissioner de Silva suggested that they have a special meeting to continue working on the procedures.