Early this morning, the Star-Advertiser posted a story on its website, obviously based on info from the police department (“Public’s comments about HPD to be used by inspection team”).
Here’s the substance:
The Honolulu Police Department is seeking comment on any of its polices and procedures.
An international accreditation team will accept public comments Tuesday on HPD policies, procedures, administration, operations and services.The comments will be part of an on-site assessment conducted by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.
The public is invited to phone in comments or attend the public comment session. Telephone comments will be taken at 723-3800 from 2 to 4 p.m.
The public comment session will begin at 5 p.m. at the HPD’s Community Affairs Division Conference Room, 801 S Beretania St.
So the accreditation process is publicly announced at the last minute. Even this article appears to be behind the S-A paywall.
I just checked the HPD website and didn’t see anything regarding the public comment session.
No link is provided to further online information, no email address to seek further information.
Is this one of those “appear to solicit public comment, but don’t really try too hard” maneuvers? Perhaps the department has reached out well in advance to community organizations, neighborhood boards, and others. If so, no problem.
But if this little item is the extent of their efforts, they are just too little, too late.
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If they really wanted to solicit public comment, the first they they should have done was to have the public comment session at a place other than HPD headquarters. They could have used a number of other publicly accessible venues from the Ala Wai Golf Course Clubhouse to any of a number or Dept. of Parks and Recreation facility, all of which would have been viewed as “neutral ground” where persons wishing to testify could do so without going through HPD security and have so many officers in the vicinity. What they are doing sounds more like a shibai.
About a dozen demonstrators went to HPD’s “listening sessions” to protest murders by HPD and demand info on the Sheldon Haleck case. There were about a half dozen other people there. About 5 spoke — all criticizing HPD. There was coverage on KITV. When asked what would happen to their report, the accreditation team said they would submit the report to HPD, and that HPD could determine whether or not to release it. Total shibai.