A retired Hawaii Police Department assistant chief told the Tribune-Herald on Tuesday that a HPD major in the running for police chief and a captain who answers directly to her shouldn’t have accepted four nights in a Kailua-Kona hotel paid for by the Ironman Triathlon.
James O’Connor was referring to Maj. Sherry Bird, who’s second in command of the Area II Field Operations Bureau in Kona, and Capt. Thomas Shopay, who commands West Hawaii’s Criminal Investigation Division.
“You know what? A major and a captain, they know better,” said O’Connor, who was the assistant chief overseeing the Area II Field Operations Bureau when he retired on Nov. 1, 2021. “And even if it’s offered to everybody in the police department, it’s still free. It’s a gratuity, it’s a gift. You don’t do it. You’ve got to decline it.
“It’s not like a free cup of coffee at 7-Eleven, although you shouldn’t accept that, either. We’re talking about (four) nights at a hotel. How much is that going to run?”
Bird, one of four finalists to succeed Paul Ferreira, who retired as chief on Aug. 31, was informed by Commissioner Denby Toci that the commission was in possession of a $1,953 receipt from Marriott for a room for her paid for by the triathlon organization during the 2022 Ironman, which was held in early October in West Hawaii.
“Have you filed a gift disclosure with the Board of Ethics yet?” Toci asked Tuesday during a special meeting of the commission in Kona.
Bird replied that she didn’t do a gift disclosure, saying she didn’t believe it was a gift because she was working as incident commander.
“Does receiving a comped room violate HPD’s General Order 300? If yes, why did you take the room? If no, why do you not think it violated the general order?”
Bird, who lives in Kona, said she needed to be there and used the room only to go to use bathroom and catch a couple of hours of sleep. She said the room didn’t influence her.
General Order 300 states: “Personnel shall not accept directly or indirectly any gifts, gratuities, loans, fees, rewards, or any other things of value arising from or offered because of police employment or activities connected with said employment.”
According to Deputy Corporation Counsel Cody Frenz, the commission’s lawyer, the commission also is in receipt of a hotel bill for a room for Shopay, but Shopay’s name wasn’t mentioned during the commission meeting.
HPD spokeswoman Denise Laitinen said in a text message that because of the international significance of the Ironman and the possibility of a “shooting, bombing, terrorist threat, etc.,” senior command of HPD and other law enforcement officials are provided rooms by the Ironman as “a matter of public safety, not a gift.”
“A gift is defined by Hawaii County Code as something ‘intended to influence the officer or employee in the performance of the officer’s or employee’s official duties or is intended as a reward for any official action on the officer’s or employee’s part,’” Laitinen said in the text.
“The availability of a room is not intended to influence an officer or employee’s performance of their official duties nor is it a reward for any official action on the officer or employee’s part.”
The other three finalists to become Hawaii County’s top cop are: Maj. Benjamin Moszkowicz of the Honolulu Police Department; Capt. Paul Applegate of the Kauai Police Department; and retired FBI agent Edward Ignacio.
O’Connor said John Bertsch, the Police Commission chairman who also is chief of security for the Ironman Triathlon, should’ve recused himself at the beginning of the selection process instead of after the four finalists were announced.
Bertsch said he was close personal friends with Ignacio and didn’t want the appearance of a conflict of interest.
“He did excuse himself from that one, but that was after (Ignacio) was already in the top four, which I have an issue with,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor added that even with a supposedly confidential questionnaire that identified candidates only by numbers assigned by the county’s Department of Human Resources, the process is still less than transparent.
“Those two, all of a sudden in this anonymous process, become finalists out of four? That, to me, indicates some sort of inequality in this process,” O’Connor said. “Someone knew who they were, and somehow they got pushed through. That’s what it says to me. I think it says that to a lot of people, too, when they look at that.”
O’Connor, who testified Monday at a commission meeting in Hilo that none of the four candidates “jump off the paper” for him, although he supported Applegate, said the early rounds of the process turned the selection process into “an essay contest.”
“Let’s get this correct, and do things right,” he said Tuesday. “That’s what the men and women of the police department deserve and what the community deserves.”
The commission will hold its monthly meeting at 9 a.m. Friday at the County Council room in Hilo, with further consideration of the chief candidates on the agenda.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.