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What would you think if police could make up the laws as they went along?

Sounds scary, right?

That’s not how things are supposed to work in America.

Yet that’s exactly how the Honolulu Police Department is operating when it comes to the that requires it to make certain information about itself and its officers public.

All state agencies and all City and County of Honolulu departments — except the police department — have complied with a law requiring the names, salaries and job titles of government employees to be public. The police department last year effectively denied a Civil Beat request for the names, salaries and job titles of its employees.

Here is the relevant language of :

§92F-12 Disclosure required. (a) Any other provision in this chapter to the contrary notwithstanding, each agency shall make available for public inspection and duplication during regular business hours:

(14) The name, compensation (but only the salary range for employees covered by or included in chapter 76, and sections 302A-602 to 302A-640, and 302A-701, or bargaining unit (8)), job title, business address, business telephone number, job description, education and training background, previous work experience, dates of first and last employment, position number, type of appointment, service computation date, occupational group or class code, bargaining unit code, employing agency name and code, department, division, branch, office, section, unit, and island of employment, of present or former officers or employees of the agency; provided that this paragraph shall not require the creation of a roster of employees; and provided further that this paragraph shall not apply to information regarding present or former employees involved in an undercover capacity in a law enforcement agency;

The department has argued that it’s unclear which officers should be covered by the exemption for current and former undercover employees. It first tried to claim that officers who could work undercover in the future should be exempted, but the Office of Information Practices shot that idea down. Then the department asked the Legislature to clarify which officers should be covered. (Those efforts have failed.)

While it still hasn’t complied with Civil Beat’s initial request, the department went ahead and on Feb. 9 made public the names of the very officers it had said could never be released, because they are definitely undercover — members of a crime reduction unit.

That decision to issue a press release naming officers who identities it had previously said couldn’t ever be shared with Civil Beat prompted four new open records requests. Here’s what we asked and what we learned.

A Press Release Reveals Secret Info

Question: Based on my previous communications with the department, could it be true that the department issued a press release naming undercover officers?
Answer: Yes.

In a Feb. 9 press release about HPD award recipients, the department named the entire District 7 (East Honolulu) Crime Reduction Unit. I was surprised by the disclosure because I had been told in no uncertain terms by Chief Louis Kealoha that such units are undercover and could never be identified. The chief was actually trying to find a reasonable interpretation of undercover and categorized such units as among those whose officers were clearly undercover.

After the department identified the officers in its press release, I filed an open records request, asking for a copy of the press release.

I wasn’t mistaken. It definitely lists the names.

Looks the Same, Sounds the Same, Treated Differently

Question: If eight units perform the same function, and the department reveals the names of officers in one unit, would it reveal the names of officers in the other units?
Answer: No.

Given that the department had named the officers in the District 7 crime reduction unit, I filed another request asking for the same information about the seven other crime reduction units. The request for names was rejected.

The reason: “Disclosure of the names of members of the Crime Reduction Units will reveal the identity of undercover police officers.”

Why is it OK for the department to publish the names of one crime reduction unit but then say that disclosing the names of the members of other crime reduction units would reveal the identity of uncover police officers?

Aren’t laws supposed to be applied consistently?

I sent the chief a list of questions. You can read them and his two-sentence response at the bottom of this article.¹

Maybe I was missing something.

Civil Beat: Same Question; HPD: Different Answer

Question: Even though we’ve pointed out many times that the department regularly publishes names of officers, with this new press release, will we be denied again?
Answer: No.

I thought I’d see whether once names were public, salaries would be, too. After all, the department and police union have insisted that their objection to our request for names, salaries and job titles had nothing to do with salaries and everything to do with officer safety.

I filed another open records request, asking just for the salaries of all the officers named in the press release.

To my surprise, it gave me the salaries of all 19 officers in the press release, including the eight undercover officers in the crime reduction unit.

This is the first time the department has shared any salaries. (In this case, they’re just ranges, as is required for these positions under state law. For other positions, the department must give specific dollar amounts.)

Police: Revealing Officers’ Names Doesn’t Reveal Officers’ Identity

Question: If the department would release names, arguably the most essential piece of information to discover the identity of an individual, what else would it make public that is required by law?
Answer: Everything but education and training background and previous work experience.

I also filed an open records request for everything required to be made public under Hawaii law — except salaries. My thought was that given the department’s stance on salaries, including them in the request might get in the way of obtaining the other information required to be disclosed under state law.

In this case, the department shared some information — job descriptions, rank, years of service, etc. — but not the officers’ education and training background or previous work experience.

The reason: “The information requested will lead to the identity of undercover police officers.”

Wait a second. The department itself had already named them. What could be more essential (other than a Social Security number) to determining the identity of an undercover officer than his or her real name?

I don’t have an answer to that question. The department won’t tell me.

I’m confused. The department seems to be providing contradictory answers.

Just like everyone else, it can’t follow the law when it wants to and ignore it when it doesn’t.

Yet that’s what it seems to be doing.

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1. Here are the questions I sent Chief Louis Kealoha:

• How is it consistent for the department to publicly name and provide the salaries and job titles of all the members of the District 7 crime reduction unit, a unit that you had said was clearly undercover, and not provide the same information about other officers on the force, as requested by Civil Beat?
• How is it consistent for the department to refuse to release the names of all the members of HPD’s seven other crime reduction units when it’s done so with the District 7 unit?
  *Did the department receive permission from each of the officers in the District 7 Crime Reduction Unit to waive the exemption from state law that prohibits identifying undercover officers so it could name them publicly? If not, why didn’t you do the same when Civil Beat requested the same information?
• Why did the department find it legal to release the names and salaries of 19 officers, including eight undercover officers, when it would not release the names and salaries of any other officers?
• Why would a request for the education and training background and previous work experience of officers be rejected, when the single most important identifying characteristic of the very same undercover officers, their name, has already been released?
• Does the name of an officer not reveal his or her identity? If it does not, why did the department reject Civil Beat’s request for the names and salaries of officers? If it does, why did the department reveal the names of eight undercover officers in a press release and at a public event where they could be photographed?
• The department has now made public the names and salaries of 19 officers, including eight who work undercover. Why is it legal to release the names and salaries of those 19 and not the other roughly 2,000 officers in the department?
• Why does District 4 have different job descriptions for its crime reduction unit sergeants and officers than all the other districts?
• Given that the bills that would have provided the department direction on how to determine which officers are undercover for purposes of the open records law are now dead, how will the department respond to Civil Beat’s standing request for the names, salaries and job titles of all employees of the department? Or do you believe I’m mistaken about the status of those bills? If so, how would you characterize their status?

Here is the chief’s response to these questions in its entirety:

“As the Chief, I have an obligation to protect our officers and look out for their well-being, physical safety, and interests.  As such, I have decided not to release certain information relating to former and current undercover officers, who are exempt under the Uniform Information Practices Act.”

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Read related articles:

• To read about the city’s attempts to avoid complying with the law as it regards releasing information about public employees: Hawaii’s Open Records Law Applies to You, Too, Honolulu
• To read about the police union’s position on complying with the law and how it has made clear to the chief that he faces a slew of lawsuits if he complies with the law: Honolulu Police Union Wants Entire Force to Be Secret
• To read about the city’s failed attempts to get the Hawaii Legislature to change the law regarding public records: When Should Names of Police Officers Be Public?