A bill that would establish a statewide policy for police motor vehicle pursuits will be heard at 10 a.m. Thursday by the House Transportation Committee.
House Bill 277 was introduced by Rep. David Tarnas (D-Kohala) with Rep. Jeanne Kapela, a fellow Big Island Democrat, among six co-sponsors.
Tarnas said his motivation, in part, was a 2021 police chase in Makaha, Oahu, in which a suspect being pursued by police crashed his vehicle and was seriously injured, and the Honolulu police officers involved in the chase allegedly left the scene and returned as if nothing happened.
Three officers were fired, and criminal charges were filed against them and a fourth officer.
The City and County of Honolulu settled with the injured driver, Jonaven Perkins Sinapati, for $12.5 million.
“There’s a lot of problems with these police officers and how they conducted themselves,” Tarnas told the Tribune-Herald on Tuesday. “But it pointed out the need to have clear pursuit policies that everybody should follow.”
The measure would limit the circumstances under which police could engage in a vehicle pursuit. Police could only initiate a pursuit if an individual in the vehicle being chased is believed to have committed murder, manslaughter, negligent homicide, felony assault, sexual assault, domestic abuse, escape or DUI — and the vehicle pursuit “is necessary to identify or apprehend” the suspect.
“What I’m trying to do is establish statewide standards for policing, to support our police and … rather than just leave it up to individual counties to have their own pursuit policy, I’m proposing that this be a statewide policy, and that the Department of Law Enforcement and the Law Enforcement Standards Board take the lead to produce that policy,” he said.
“This is a serious matter, and I’m trying to address it in a reasonable way, trying to look atwhat are the best practices in other states, and nationally.”
Tarnas said he consulted with an expert while crafting the bill — Josh Parker, deputy director of policy for The Policing Project at New York University School of Law. Parker described The Policing Project as “a national nonprofit focused on bringing democratic accountability to policing and furthering public safety in an equitable and transparent manner.”
Parker pointed to a white paper published last year by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Policing Office in tandem with the Police Executive Research Forum.
“They looked at best practices across all the law enforcement agencies in the country and made firm recommendations for what should be in any pursuit policy,” Parker said. “And the core recommendation they have for all pursuit policies is that they should only permit pursuit for situations where someone in the vehicle is reasonably suspected of committing a violent crime, or in a very limited situation where someone is driving recklessly or under the influence.
“But in those situations, the pursuit should only happen if the officer believes they wouldn’t be putting the public or themselves more in danger by engaging in the pursuit.”
The report stated that, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the number of fatal crashes related to police pursuits reached a peak of 455 in 2020.
Parker said he’ll testify in favor of the legislation.
Hawaii Police Department Chief Benjamin Moszkowicz said he’ll also testify, but in opposition.
According to Moszkowicz, his officers “already comply with the intent” of the bill. His issue is “with some of the restrictions.”
“They have these restrictions in the beginning, ‘No law enforcement officer shall engage in a (vehicular) pursuit unless’ and there’s a list of specified crimes for which we can pursue,” Moszkowicz said. “There’s a lot of things that are going on in real time and there’s a lot of risk-assessment decisions that we’re already asking officers to make. And, by and large, at least here on the Big Island, officers are really good at making these decisions.”
Moszkowicz said the measure “looks like a mainland solution in search of a Hawaii problem, at least as far as the Big Island is concerned.”
“We don’t always know, when we’re trying to stop a car, what the person is doing or has done,” he said. “It’s weird, because it puts the cart before the horse. You have to have evidence of what the person did before you try to stop them.
“Driving recklessly and refusing to stop is not on that list if I can’t articulate that you are DUI. So, a hazardous driver could know, ‘Hey all I have to do is not stop and the police can’t stop me.’”
The last time a police pursuit turned deadly on Hawaii Island was on Aug. 4, 2016, when 17-year-old Deasd Silva allegedly stole a car in downtown Hilo. When police stopped the car at the corner of Kaumana Drive and the Mohouli Street extension, Silva reportedly sped away when the officer exited his own vehicle.
Police say the officer lost sight of the stolen car momentarily, then came upon a two-car crash on the extension, with Silva and his 20-year-old passenger, Alicia Andres, dead at the scene.
The driver of the other car, who sustained multiple injuries, was identified in a police log as 39-year-old Robin Cheney of Keaau.
The pursuing officer was cleared of wrongdoing.
The Hawaii Police Department’s vehicle pursuit policy, General Order 602, is a heavily-redacted document with all pursuit procedures and most of the termination of pursuit procedures unavailable to the public.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.