A private security officer who shot a pet dog in the head in front of its owners at Honolulu Airport on Tuesday night is being investigated for second-degree reckless endangering and was previously fired as a civilian police officer for the Army “for pulling a gun too much,” according to state Sen. Will Espero.
Espero, former chairman of the Senate’s Public Safety Committee, said a high-ranking sheriff’s deputy based at the Sheriff’s Department’s airport substation told him that the unidentified “older” security officer previously provided Department of Defense security as a civilian at Fort Shafter and possibly Fort DeRussy but was fired, although the date is unclear.
The state Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Sheriff’s Department, said in a statement that “there is an active investigation into Tuesday’s incident at the airport being conducted by the state Sheriffs. It would be premature to release findings until the investigation is complete.”
Espero said he has long known the high-ranking sheriff’s deputy who told him that Securitas Security Services USA, which provides security at the airport, hired the man even though the Defense Department had fired him for “pulling a gun too much and a variety of other things.”
The deputy later told Espero that the man also had been “overbearing. … He should never have been picked up by Securitas because he has a history,” Espero said the deputy told him. “This time he proved it. He shot something.”
Securitas’ director of security, former Honolulu Police Chief Lee Donohue, said the shooting is under investigation and that he had no comment.
There have been frictions between Securitas’ armed “airport police” and sheriff’s deputies at the airport. The deputies union, the Hawaii Government Employees Association, filed a lawsuit last year challenging Securitas’ security contract at the airport.
The contract calls for a “Law Enforcement Officer (armed) who would have police powers, including the authority to arrest, and charged with the enforcement of laws, rules and regulations.”
There are also provisions for an “Airport Security Officer (unarmed)” with identical police powers.
The dog’s owner, Leisha Ramos, 25, of Mililani told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that she did not know that private security carried weapons at Honolulu Airport.
She said the security guard shot her 2-year-old pit-bull mix dog, Kai‘ele, after they arrived on separate flights from Hawaii island.
Ramos said her boyfriend picked up Kai‘ele at the air cargo area, then drove his truck and parked near a grassy area just mauka of the Hawaiian Airlines terminal.
Ramos said Kai‘ele was left chained to a nearby coconut tree while her boyfriend went to gather her luggage at baggage claim.
Ramos said a security officer parked his truck, got out and was shouting at her and her boyfriend to leave and remove the dog. She said he shouted at them and pulled out his weapon.
“My dog stood up. … He was wagging his tail,” she said.
She said Kai‘ele’s chain broke, but she immediately grabbed his collar before the dog pulled away.
Ramos said she was holding her 5-month-old baby when the guard shot the dog in the forehead from a few feet away.
She said the security officer’s behavior aggravated the situation.
“He just kept pushing it,” she said. “I didn’t even think it was a loaded gun until I saw the blood gushing out of his (Kai‘ele’s) forehead.”
Their job, she said, “is to keep the peace, not cause chaos, not wave your gun around.”
After the shooting, the officer just walked away, Ramos said.
“I said, ‘You just shot my dog!’”
Her boyfriend has three children, ages 5, 6 and 11. The oldest heard what happened on television, but the youngest are still wondering when they’ll see the family pet, Ramos said.
“I still don’t know how to break the news to them,” she said. “I just told them, ‘Oh, he’s not with Auntie right now.’ It’s going to break their hearts because we were all looking forward to being back together. He was their first dog and Kai‘ele was like their brother. He went everywhere with us.”
After the shooting, Ramos wrote a statement of her account of the shooting and received sympathy from sheriff’s deputies and some Securitas employees.
“They were apologizing to me, saying, ‘I’m sorry. What happened to you shouldn’t have happened,’” she said. “A lot of people apologized. They were really kind and considerate.”
Espero on Thursday sent an email to the offices of Gov. David Ige, the Attorney General and Department of Transportation, which oversees the airport, asking whether it is state policy to hire law enforcement officers “who have been fired by other government agencies? Shouldn’t the policy be no fired law enforcement officers shall be hired by state for law enforcement positions? … The state should not be paying for or allowing fired officers at our state facilities or properties. Terminated law enforcement officers should not be hired by the state (or contracted out) for similar positions.”
