Yesterday I posted a correction regarding the arbitration decision on a grievance filed seeking to overturn the Honolulu Police Department’s dismissal of Sgt. Al Lee, who had gotten squeezed by conflicting pressures and interests during the active investigations of Mike Miske and then HPD Chief Louis Kealoha.

Remember the old adage, “When elephants battle the ants perish.”

Today I’ll share a little more information from the arbitration decision itself.

In the early morning hours of November 17, 2016, Sgt. Lee’s police department subsidized vehicle crashed along Lunalilo Home Road, damaging a Hawaiian Electric facility and knocking out power in the area.

The accident, and Lee’s actions, were subjects of both a civil and a criminal investigation by HPD. Results were reviewed by a departmental Administrative Review Board, which concurred with the recommendation that Lee should be fired.

On May 18, 2018, Lee was discharged after then Chief Susan Ballard determined there was sufficient evidence Lee had been driving under the influence of an intoxicant at the time of the crash, and that had made “untruthful statements” to investigators at the scene, and in subsquent interviews. Ballard also found Lee had violated department rules by speaking to the news media without prior authorization.

A grievance was filed on Lee’s behalf by SHOPO, the police officers union, and eventually an arbitration hearing was held on February 17-18, 2021 before arbitrator Audrey B Eide.

SHOPO argued the department’s internal investigation was neither fair nor thorough, because the department’s investigator “ignored Detective Lee’s expressed concerns that the civil and criminal investigations were done internally by the department, under the supervision of Chief Louis Kealoha and the Prosecutor’s Office where Deputy Prosecutor Katherine Kealoha worked.”

During the arbitration proceeding, Lee disclosed for the first time that he had been threatened by both Miske and Katherine Kealoha.

“At the time of the crash Detective Lee was cooperating in an investigation with the FBI which included the Kealohas and the notorious crime boss Mike Miske,” according to the arbitrator’s opinion. “The investigation was to be kept confidential. Detective Lee testified at the Arbitration he was threatened by Miske and warned by Prosecuting Attorney Katherine Kealoha to back off on a warrant he had out for Miske’s arrest. He was very frightened for his and his family’s safety and under a lot of stress.”

Lee also disclosed he was under a “gag order” until the FBI investigation was concluded, and asked that the department suspend his case until the gag order expired. The department declined. The existence of a gag order has not been independently verified.

SHOPO argued the department’s investigation had not pursued the question of whether Lee had been drugged, nor his belief he had been “targeted” because of his cooperation with the FBI’s investigation of Miske, and his testimony before a federal grand jury about the alleged illegal activities of Katherine and Louis Kealoha.

HPD’s internal investigation of the accident reportedly took about 5 months to complete. Louis Kealoha stepped down as chief in January 2017, well before the investigation was completed, although his wife, a deputy prosecutor and division chief went on leave from her position in April 2017. Despite Lee’s concerns, it’s difficult to tell whether the couple would have had much influence remaining during the months of the investigation, or the subsequent administrative review.

The department noted that Lee had “changed his story” several times from the night of the accident through the course of the investigation, and held that at least some of his statements were untruthful. SHOPO argued Lee had consistently said he did not remember who was driving at the time of the accident, until finally concluding that the evidence did show he had been driving, and at that point he accepted responsiblity for the crash, the arbitrator found the department’s position reasonable.

The department’s position during the arbitration was straight forward.

The Employer on the other hand, at page 16 of their brief argue that the role of the
Arbitrator is limited. In a discharge case the Arbitrator is to review and not redetermine
management’s decision or substitute their judgment for that of the Employer. They further argue that the proper standard for evaluating the Employer’s decision is whether the decision to discharge the employee was arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable. If the Employer’s decision was not arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable, or based on mistake of fact, its decision should stand.

Although SHOPO argued that the arbitrator should be lenient and impose discipline short of dismissal, the arbitrator noted “that leniency is the prerogative of the Employer rather than that of the Arbitrator….” And in this case at least, HPD declined to accept a lesser punishment.

In the end, the arbitrator concluded the department’s actions were not arbitrary or capricious, and “the grievance must be denied.”

See:

The Miske Files: An Officer Gets Caught In The Crossfire, Civil Beat, November 28, 2023.

“Do you believe in coincidences?,” iLind.net, April 14, 2019

“Attorney alleges prosecutors retaliated against HPD officer for businessman’s arrest,” iLind.net, April 13, 2019.