������Ƶ

The state Department of Law Enforcement on Wednesday arrested a third deputy sheriff in connection with the alleged harassment of a sheriff’s trainee this year.

Wayne Ibarra, acting public information officer for the department, said in a written statement that Deputy Sheriff William Keahi, 40, was arrested at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday by the department’s Criminal Investigations Division for alleged reckless endangering and harassment.

The department announced last week Deputy Sheriff Alvin Turla, 46, was arrested on June 18 on suspicion of harassment, and announced on Tuesday that Sheriff’s Deputy Sergeant Erich Mitamura, 40, was arrested on the same charge.

The announcements from the department do not explain exactly what led to the arrests, but a source familiar with the incidents has said they grew out of allegations that a Black deputy sheriff in training was racially harassed by his co-workers during shift briefings and other activities.

Keahi is assigned to the Airport Division, and allegedly ordered another trainee to rush into airport traffic at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport to stop a vehicle under unsafe conditions that did not follow proper safety procedures. Other trainees were not given the same order, according to the source.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said the trainee Keahi allegedly harassed was the same trainee as the other two accused sheriffs. But in fact it was a different trainee.

State Department of Law Enforcement Director Jordan Lowe said Tuesday that five other staffers with the Sheriff’s Department have also been placed on leave with pay pending the outcome of a separate investigation.

He declined to say what wrongdoing was alleged in that second case, but described the investigation as “both administrative and criminal.”