Lawsuit: Maui Police Trainers Failed To Aid Recruit Who Fell Unconscious
Alexa Jacobs was admitted to the hospital in a coma and a temperature of 107.
A former Maui police recruit is suing senior officers in the department for failing to render aid after she nearly died during training in Kahului in February 2022.
Alexa Jacobs suffered heatstroke and became unresponsive following a cross-country run.
Her lawsuit, filed in the 2nd Circuit Court Thursday, claims her collapse was caused during a hazing as part of a regular “Beat Down Friday”.
“Beat Down Friday” was a practice used by department trainers on the first Friday of the month to winnow new recruits, the lawsuit alleges.
Capt. Clifton Perreira and Officers Jeremy Pallone-De La Torre, Andrew Cabral and Nolan Wada were named as defendants in the suit, under separate counts of failure to render aid and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
On Feb. 4, Jacobs and other recruits completed a 1.5 mile run at the War Memorial Stadium as part of their physical fitness assessment.
The lawsuit alleges the outside temperature was recorded at 83 degrees and humidity was 84.8%.
The defendants, who were conducting the training, then ordered recruits to do an additional cross-country run despite recruits being fatigued and dehydrated, the filing said. If a recruit fell behind, the training officers required the class to stop and complete physical exercises as punishment until their classmate caught up.
Jacobs said her fellow recruits noticed her lips turned blue during one stop, but the run continued.
During one of the punitive stops at the Maui Nui Botanical Gardens, Jacobs fell unconscious and was unresponsive for between five and 10 minutes, according to the filing. She says the training officers directed other recruits to help her, but did not intervene.
Pallone-De La Torre called an ambulance after five minutes but failed to identify the event as emergency.
Jacob’s internal temperature reached 107 degrees and she suffered multiple organ failure, Hawaii News Now reported.
The training officers should have known to administer critical care, and that failure to do so would result in irreparable injury, the suit said.
The filing alleges that at least two other female recruits had experienced heat stroke or exhaustion in previous recruitment intakes.
Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.
