An attorney for three Honolulu Police Department officers who filed a federal lawsuit charging HPD with race and gender discrimination alleges that top-ranking HPD officers, city attorneys and the city Equal Opportunity Office conspired to cover up wrongdoing by officers.
Merit Bennett, an attorney for two current HPD officers and a former one, said in a written request to have his lawsuit revised that newly uncovered documents show an internal HPD panel recommended disciplinary action against a lieutenant and then later reversed itself.
Bennett said the parties conspired to change the disciplinary recommendation in an effort to undermine the plaintiffs’ case against the department.
"The intentional and callous disregard of the defendants for the rights and safety of the plaintiffs, coupled with the defendants’ willingness to cover up, conceal and manipulate evidence in a federal lawsuit, reveal a conspiracy of corruption and deceit involving the whole of the plaintiff’s chain of command, all the way up to the chief of police, all of which was enabled by complicit City and County employees," Bennett said in a prepared statement.
At issue are allegations that HPD Sgt. Shermon Dowkin and former officer Federico Delgadillo were discriminated against because of their race, and after filing a formal complaint were retaliated against to the point where they were placed in danger because fellow officers were ordered by superiors not to back them up. Dowkin is African-American and Delgadillo is Mexican-American.
Officer Cassandra Bennett-Bagorio, the third plaintiff in the lawsuit, contended that when she backed the claims of Dowkin and Delgadillo, she experienced sexual discrimination and also was placed in danger. Bennett-Bagorio said she sustained a serious back injury after she was ordered into a bar alone and was assaulted by a patron, an injury so debilitating she has not been able to return to patrol duty.
Trial is scheduled for Oct. 23.
Bennett said documents turned over by city attorneys in the pretrial process suggest strongly that city officials sought to "whitewash" a determination made by an internal HPD administrative review board that found Lt. Dan Kwon, who supervised Dowkin and Delgadillo in the Windward patrol district, had acted in a racially discriminatory manner against them.
Bennett pointed to a Nov. 10, 2009, letter from Denise Tsukayama, the city’s equal opportunity officer, requesting that HPD "resubmit your recommendations after obtaining and considering additional information relevant to the allegations."
In a court filing, Bennett said, "It is apparent that this letter was referring to the HPD Administrative Review Board’s recommendation that disciplinary action be taken against defendant Lt. Kwon," an apparent attempt to "whitewash evidence" and undermine the lawsuit.
Tsukayama did not return a call for comment Friday.
In her letter to then-Acting Chief Paul Putzulu, who is not named in the lawsuit, Tsukayama wrote that the new information included a statement made by Kwon that he and Delgadillo "engaged in mutual name calling." She also wrote that Delgadillo complained of retaliation by Sgt. Wayne Fernandez, a named defendant in the lawsuit.
Bennett, in court documents, said his clients have never received directly the decisions made by the Administrative Review Board on the complaints they filed. But he pointed to a Nov. 3, 2011, letter from Tsukayama to Police Chief Louis Kealoha recommending that charges against Kwon be dropped. In that second letter, Tsukayama referenced an earlier recommendation made by the Administrative Review Board that Kwon be disciplined and that charges against Fernandez be dropped.
Tsukayama went on to recommend that charges against both Kwon and Fernandez "be deemed not sustained" based on investigative findings and because both Delgadillo and Bennett declined to respond to Kwon’s allegations that there was "mutual name calling."
Bennett said in court documents that Deputy Corporation Counsel D. Scott Dodd, Kealoha and Deputy Chief Dave Kajihiro also participated in the reversal of the review panel’s original findings, suggesting that other documents showed Dodd had urged Tsukayama to seek a reversal opinion while Kealoha and Kajihiro, at the very least, initialed Tsukayama’s November 2011 letter absolving Kwon and Fernandez of wrongdoing.
City Deputy Corporation Counsel Renee Sonobe Hong said it is the policy of the city for its employees not to comment on pending lawsuits against them or the city.
Named in the lawsuit are retired Chief Boisse Correa; current Chief Kealoha; current Deputy Chief Kajihiro; retired Assistant Chief Michael Tamashiro; retired Maj. Kenneth Simmons; Maj. John McEntire; retired Capt. Nyle Dolera; Lt Michael Serrao; Kwon; Capt. William Axt; former Sgt. Fernandez; Sgt. Ralstan Tanaka; Detective Colby Kashimoto; former HPD civilian labor relations adviser Pat Ah Loo; and Tsukayama.
Bennett, who is requesting permission to file a fourth amended complaint, pointed out specific instances in which his clients were left without backup as retaliation for their lawsuit.
In the most dramatic example, Bennett said, Bennett-Bagorio sustained severe back injuries in October 2010 when she was ordered by Tanaka into a bar to confront a robbery suspect without any backup as mandated by law, Bennett said.
Superiors in the Windward district, where Dowkin and Delgadillo worked for a number of years as a team enforcing driving-under-the-influence laws, allegedly ordered other officers not to give them cover. Among those given the order was Bennett-Bagorio.
In other instances, superiors and colleagues exacted emotional distress on the three, Bennett said in court documents.
Superiors endangered the three by failing to separate them from the parties with whom they had made complaints of discrimination and retaliation against, essentially looking the other way, Bennett said.
Delgadillo resigned as a police officer and moved to the mainland. Bennett-Bagorio is on desk duty as a result of her injury. Dowkin remains a sergeant assigned to the Windward patrol district.
