The tab to taxpayers is nearing $10 million and likely will go higher.
Over the past decade, that’s about how much the city has paid or approved to settle dozens of lawsuits accusing Honolulu Police Department officers of excessive force, negligence and other wrongdoing, including civil rights violations.
The city typically does not admit wrongdoing when settling.
But the City Council, which makes the final call, approves settlements only after city attorneys make a persuasive argument that the potential cost of not settling would exceed that of settling and after considering the weaknesses in the city’s position, according to Councilman Ron Menor, chairman of the legal affairs committee.
City documents obtained by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser through a records request and Council minutes show that the city has paid or approved settlements totaling more than $9.7 million since 2005. The total covers about 80 lawsuits.
The $9.7 million does not include settlements paid entirely with money from the city’s liability insurance coverage, according to the Department of the Corporation Counsel, the office of attorneys that defends the city in such cases.
The office could not provide any estimates on how many lawsuits in recent years have been settled using exclusively insurance money, the total payouts or how such payouts affect premium rates.
The $9.7 million also does not cover the hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees the city has paid to outside law firms to help with certain cases.
The overall settlements since 2005 cover a range of cases.
In 2014 the city settled a civil rights lawsuit by paying $190,000 to the family of a man who died in a jail cell following a drunken-driving arrest.
A few years before that, the city paid $24,500 to the family of a 13-year-old boy who was injured on the way home from school when he was thrown to the ground by an officer who mistook the boy for someone else police were seeking.
Nearly half of the $9.7 million came from one set of allegations.
The Council this year authorized paying $4.7 million to settle two lawsuits by three current and former officers who alleged they were discriminated against and subjected to a cover-up by HPD managers. As of March the Council also had approved paying $750,000 in legal fees to three firms working on those cases.
Menor said in a written statement that the vast majority of HPD officers do admirable jobs and that the misconduct by a few should not reflect on the reputation of the entire force.
While approving the settlements, he added, the Council urges city attorneys to follow up with HPD to ensure the offending officers were disciplined and that proper training is provided so future large payouts for misconduct can be avoided.
CROSSING THE LINE
Here are examples of officers who were convicted of criminal offenses for conduct that occurred when they still were with HPD:
Vincent Morre
Vincent Morre was caught on video assaulting two patrons at an illegal gambling establishment while searching for a fugitive. But the officer didn’t know about the video. When Vince Morre turned in his report on the 2014 search, he did not mention the unprovoked assaults. Neither did two other officers who were with him. The FBI subsequently investigated. Morre resigned from the Honolulu Police Department after pleading guilty in federal court in 2015 to depriving the victims of their constitutional rights while under color of the law. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Roddy Tsunezumi
A nine-year veteran of the force, Roddy Tsunezumi pleaded guilty in federal court in July 2014 to attempting to extort thousands of dollars from the owners of a hostess bar in exchange for protection from a kidnapping and robbery plot. Tsunezumi, who subsequently resigned from HPD, was sentenced to 33 months in prison. He admitted to authorities that he tried to extort $15,000 from the bar owners, working with an accomplice. Tsunezumi also received three years of supervised release and was fined $5,000.
Michael Tarmoun
After a second trial, Michael Tarmoun was found guilty in June 2011 of sexually assaulting a Waikiki prostitute. He subsequently was fired from the force. Prosecutors said Tarmoun threatened to arrest the prostitute if she refused to have sex with him. Before his sentencing on the second-degree assault charge, Tarmoun fled the state and in 2012 was reported to be in his native Morocco.
