Everything about The Honolulu Police Department totally explained
The
Honolulu Police Department (
HPD) is the principal
law enforcement agency of the
City and County of Honolulu,
Hawai'i.
Founded in
1932, the
police department serves the entire island of
O'ahu, covering over 600 square miles (1,600 km²) of territory, with 880,000 residents and over four million annual visitors. The current number of officers in the force is 1,923 officers, 217 of them are female officers.
Unlike the other 49
states, Hawai'i doesn't have a
state police agency or individual city agencies; law enforcement is the
jurisdiction of the individual county governments. The HPD is nationally accredited by the
Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA).
Kingdom of Hawai'i
In 1840, the Supreme Court of
Kamehameha III established the first constitution for the
Kingdom of Hawai'i. The constitution paved the way for the
Act to Organize the Executive Departments of the Government signed on April 27, 1846. The law created the office of marshal of the kingdom, the highest ranking police officer in the nation. He nominated, instructed, supervised and controlled the sheriffs of the kingdom of which there were four, one for each administrative region of
Kaua'i,
O'ahu,
Mau'i and
Hawai'i. Each sheriff administered a corps of constables officially appointed by the four royal governors. Constables wore a distinct police insignia that consisted of a scarlet crown with the initials
KIII in honor of Kamehameha III. The insignia was worn on the arm and on a red band on their police hats.
Territory of Hawai'i
In 1893, the Kingdom of Hawai'i was replaced by the
Provisional Government of Hawai'i which quickly deposed the marshal of the kingdom and dissolved the constabulary. In 1894, the newly proclaimed
Republic of Hawai'i formed its own police system.
After a few years under the governance of the
Territory of Hawai'i, four county governments were established out of the original administrative regions of the monarchy. In 1905, each county was equipped with a police department led by an appointed sheriff. Police officers wore an
octagon-shaped police badge similar in appearance to those of other police departments of the period. In the 1920s the badge was redesigned with an eagle on top.
Sheriffs of Honolulu
In Hawaii, the Office of Sheriff falls under the Sheriff Division of the
Hawaii Department of Public Safety. It is the functional equivalent of a state police department and has the distinction of making Hawaii the only U.S. state without an officially named state police department and one of two with a statewide Sheriff's Department (the other being Rhode Island). Although the Sheriff Division's jurisdiction covers the entire state, its primary functions are judicial and executive protection, security at the
Hawaii State Capitol, law-enforcement at Hawaii's airports,
narcotics enforcement, prisoner transportation, the processing and service of court orders and
warrants, and the patrol of certain roads and waterways in conjunction with other state agencies.. Additionally, state-wide law enforcement is provided by the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) which patrols State lands, State Parks, historic sites, forest reserves, aquatic life and wildlife areas, coastal zones, Conservation districts, State shores, as well as county ordinances involving county parks.
Establishment
In response to a crime wave in the late 1920s as a result of increased racial tensions between whites and local ethnics, Territorial Governor
Lawrence M. Judd appointed a
Governor's Advisory Committee on Crime. The committee recommended that a police commission be appointed by the mayor of Honolulu whose duty it would be to appoint a
chief of police and to supervise the operating of the police department. The committee also advised that the office of sheriff should be retained and charged with the duty of serving civil process, of maintaining the Honolulu prison system and to act as coroner. On
January 22,
1932, a special session of the territorial legislature passed Act 1, establishing the Honolulu Police Commission and creating the office of chief of police. Thus was born the modern Honolulu Police Department as it exists today.
Martial law
After the
attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Territorial Governor
Joseph B. Poindexter declared
martial law and Hawai'i fell under military governance under the
Judge Advocate General's Corps. The Honolulu Police Department became a deputized military force. The word "Honolulu" was etched-out from the seven-point star badges of police officers and replaced with the word "
Emergency." For the duration of
World War II, the Honolulu Police Department was forced to impose restrictions on civil liberties and hand people over for trial by a military judge. Martial law ended after the end of the war in 1945.
Interestingly, the
San José State Spartans football team served with the Honolulu Police Department for the duration of World War II; the team had played a game against the
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Warriors but were stranded in Hawai'i after the Pearl Harbor attack.
Modernization
The first instance of modernization came in 1952 with the introduction of the Honolulu Police Department's current badge. It was designed by Detective
Alfred Karratti and embodies Hawaiian tradition and culture in its motifs. One feature that Detective Karratti kept was the use of the
Pulo'ulo'u or
kapu staffs. They are symbols of
law and order from
ancient Hawai'i.
The most aggressive programs of modernization for the Honolulu Police Department came in the
1990s. It was furnished with a fleet of new
Ford Crown Victoria police cars equipped with on-board computers and a fleet of
BMW and
Harley-Davidson police motorcycles. On October 16, 1992, the Honolulu Police Department opened its multi-million dollar state-of-the-art police headquarters in
downtown Honolulu. The building was called
Hale Maka'i and featured the latest technical advances of its time including a
DNA crime lab unit, one of the first of its kind in the nation.
Reserves
Back in 1941 for any eventuality that may occur, Honolulu Police Chief William A. Gabrielson and the Oahu Police Commission set out to establish an emergency police reserve force. 150 business and professional men responded to the call for volunteers. The Federal Bureau of Investigation helped to screen interested applicants, and 124 candidates were appointed on July 23, 1941. They completed the required training and within four months became commissioned Honolulu Police reserve officers. When enemy planes attacked Pearl Harbor, the police reserves responded magnificently. Since then, reserve officers have augmented the regular Honolulu Police Department force with many man-hours of conscientious volunteer police work. The Honolulu Police Reserves are a group of dedicated men and women from the community who voluntarily give their time each week to work alongside regular police officers without compensation. A police reserve officer must be willing to serve without compensation or financial obligation from the City and County of Honolulu. A police reserve officer is required to report for duty at least once a week for a minimum five hour tour of duty.
Line of duty deaths
To date, the Honolulu Police Department has lost 40 officers in the line of duty. The most recent, Officer Steve Favela, died November 26, 2006, five days after crashing his police motorcycle on duty; Favela was escorting the
motorcade of
President George W. Bush on rain-slickened roadways at
Hickam Air Force Base.
In popular culture
The Honolulu Police Department has been the backdrop of several famous works of fiction, in literature, television and in motion pictures.
Charlie Chan
One of the most famous fictional literary detectives attached to the Honolulu Police Department was
Charlie Chan. Chan, inspired in part by the career of
real-life HPD vice detective Chang Apana
, was created in the
1920s by
Earl Derr Biggers and had become one of the most important figures in
American mystery fiction. In addition to being the hero of six novels, Chan became the subject of some forty films between the
1930s and
1950s. He, along with his family, was also made the subject of a short-lived cartoon series.
Hawaiian Eye
From October
1959 to September
1963,
Hawaiian Eye was a crime drama aired on the
American Broadcasting Company television network. Actors
Robert Conrad and
Anthony Eisley played private detectives in Honolulu fighting crime.
Connie Stevens played Cricket, a singer at the
Hawaiian Village Hotel bar which the guys frequented at least once a show.
Hawaii Five-O
The most famous Hawaii based crime drama was
Hawaii Five-O which aired on the
Columbia Broadcasting System television network from September
1968 to April
1980. Until
Law & Order,
Hawaii Five-O was the longest running crime series on American television.
Jack Lord starred as Steve McGarrett, head of the elite state law enforcement office which worked alongside the chief of the Honolulu Police Department.
James MacArthur starred as Danny Williams, McGarrett's right-hand man. Straight-jawed men with shellacked hair fought forces of evil around the islands, especially in seedy downtown dives. Kam Fong, known as Chin Ho Kelly, also starred as a Police detective in Hawaii Five-O. Kam Fong in real life was a former Police officer for the Honolulu Police Department.
Magnum, P.I.
From December
1980 to September
1988,
Magnum, P.I. aired on the same network as
Hawaii Five-O. (Some of the shooting was in fact done on the same sound stage.) Starring
Tom Selleck as former naval intelligence officer Thomas Magnum,
Magnum, P.I. is about a private investigator working closely with Honolulu Police Department officers Nolan Page and Yoshi Tanaka. The series was widely applauded for being the first to recognize the difficulty
Vietnam War veterans faced in making the readjustment to civilian life. Many episodes touched upon the impact that serving in
Vietnam had on Magnum and his friends, as well as echoes to events of
World War II.
Hawaiian Heat
A short-lived series (Sept.-Dec. 1984) that was heavily hyped by ABC during its 1984 Olympics coverage. It starred
Robert Ginty and
Jeff McCracken as two Chicago cops who bag their boring jobs in the frozen Windy City to become detectives in paradise. (Many of the episodes were directed by reclusive African-American actor/director
Ivan Dixon.)
Jake and the Fatman
From September 1987 to March 1992, Columbia Broadcasting Company aired a spin-off for a
Matlock character. The show was called
Jake and the Fatman about Hawaii district attorney from
Los Angeles Jason Lochinvar "Fatman" McCabe played by
William Conrad and his special investigator Jake Styles played by
Joe Penny. Working closely with the Honolulu Police Department, the duo strived to put every major mob criminal in Hawaii behind bars.
Hawaii
In August 2004,
NBC introduced the police series
Hawaii. The show featured an elite Honolulu Police Department detective squad charged with fighting the most notorious of Hawaii mob criminals. Starring in the show were
Michael Biehn from
The Terminator as Sean Harrison,
Sharif Atkins from
ER as John Declan,
Ivan Sergei from
Crossing Jordan as Danny Edwards,
Eric Balfour from
Six Feet Under as Christopher Gains, and newcomers
Aya Sumika as Linh Tamiya and
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Captain Terry Harada.
Jeff Eastin was the creator and executive producer.
Daniel Sackheim from the defunct series
The Lyon's Den directed. The series was cancelled after eight episodes, partly due to strong competition from another show produced in Hawaii,
ABC's Lost.
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