Category Archives: Police

Logan’s Run

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This sounds like classic “Godfather-Speak”.

“…I am telling you to resign, or I will make it very difficult for you and your family, and you know I can.”

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blagiardi to then Honolulu Police Chief Arthur “Joe” Logan
May 28, 2025
From a lawsuit Logan filed this week over his ouster.

As the complaint spells out, Logan told a number of people about the threat soon after it was made, adding credibility to his account of what was said during this meeting with the mayor.

One has to wonder what Blangiardi was threatening to do? How would he “make it very difficult” for the chief and his family?

Is this the “real” Rick speaking?

Blangiardi’s threat against the chief and his family got the most news coverage.

But there’s an equally disturbing description of the mayor’s attempt to quash public information, undermine transparency, and “find ways to avoid releasing public information.”

Escalating Retaliation and Threats
24. MAYOR BLANGIARDI’s frustration with CHIEF LOGAN’s adherence to legal requirements escalated into a pattern of retaliation and intimidation.

25. In September 2024, after an HPD internal survey was released, MAYOR BLANGIARDI told two HPC Commissioners, who supported the internal survey and its release, that he was going to force CHIEF LOGAN’s resignation.

26. MAYOR BLANGIARDI attempted to prevent the release of the HPD internal survey, directing that HPD not release the survey and worked with the City’s Corporation Counsel to find ways to avoid releasing public information.

27. When Corporation Counsel determined the survey must be released, MAYOR BLANGIARDI was extremely upset, and told CHIEF LOGAN, ‘If you had asked me I would have told you not to do such a survey.'”

28. In late 2024 and early 2025, both of HPD’s civil service PIOs resigned and retired.

29. In or about February to April 2025, when CHIEF LOGAN went to push the City’s HR to hire the new permanent PIOs, MAYOR BLANGIARDI called CHIEF LOGAN and told CHIEF LOGAN that his team would pick who the HPD PIOs would be because CHIEF LOGAN lacked the necessary qualifications to know what good PIOs are.

30. CHIEF LOGAN pushed back against this and stated, “You are trying to micromanage the department.”

31. MAYOR BLANGIARDI became upset and told CHIEF LOGAN, “I knew you were going to say that and I hate this, I am not trying to micromanage your department, you don’t have the 40 years of experience my team and I have when it comes to the media.”

32. CHIEF LOGAN told MAYOR BLANGIARDI, “No, I don’t, but I know what type of persons I am looking for.”

33. In or about May 2025, at the Districts 1, 3 and 5 Townhall meeting, MAYOR BLANGIARDI’s Communications Director, Scott Humber, said that all PIO hires must go through the Mayor’s office and they will all be contracted positions not permanent civil service. CHIEF LOGAN believes this is a blatant violation of Civil Service rules.

34. CHIEF LOGAN objected to Mr. Humber regarding HPD having the PIO as contracted positions.

Hawaii News Now reported on the survey of HPD officers when it was publicly released last year (“Low morale, poor communication among complaints by HPD officers in internal survey”).

Last month, HPD announced the hiring of a new communications director.

It appears that after bullying Logan out of his job, Mayor Rick got his way and the new communications director is a contract hire without civil service protections. The same is likely true of her staff.

This has nothing to do with the new director’s extensive experience and skills.

This is how the job was listed by the city when applicants were being solicited, and appears to indicate it is a contract position after all.

Z_Honolulu Police Department Communications Director

Position Information

Honolulu Police Department Communcations Director Contract
Office of the Chief

Salary
$9,142.00 Monthly

Location
Honolulu, HI

Job Type
Full-Time

Job Number
CONTRACT_COM DIR

Department
Chief’s Office

Opening Date
04/14/2025

“All the better to control you with, my dear,” said the big bad wolf.

State law enforcement agency awards contract for AI tech

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Earlier this month, the state’s Department of Law Enforcement announced that it has awarded a contract with Microoft to incorporate the company’s Azure artificial intelligence technologies into the agency’s operations.

“DLE is leading the way in leveraging the latest Azure AI technologies to enhance public safety and improve the efficient operation of the department,” said Ernie Fernandez, vice president, state and local governments at Microsoft Corp. “This collaboration demonstrates how industry and public safety agencies can work together to responsibly deliver technology innovations to improve communities across the U.S.”

Modernization. Streamlining. Enhanced public safety. Improved response times.

Big promises.

But a department news release announcing the AI contract contained no details about what is going to be done, what oversight will be established, and how problems, including “hallucinations” where AI systems invent their own data, will be identified and corrected.

What could possibly go wrong? Apparently quite a lot, if AI tools aren’t incorporated carefully, transparently, and ethically, and with proper oversight and public buy-in.

Continue reading →

The continuing saga of the property at 91 Coelho Way

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On March 22, Circuit Court Judge James H. Ashford signed an order requiring the registered owner of the large house at 91 Coelho Way in Nuuanu to allow access to the part of the property where an unnarmed man, Lindani Myeni, was confronted, shot, and killed by Honolulu police officers in April 2021.

Attorney’s for Myeni’s widow, who has sued the city over his death, maintain he entered the house by mistake and left quietly when questioned by short-term renters he met after entering the unsecured home. The lawsuit alleges mistakes by police in handing the situation, including failing to identify themselves as police officers, led to the shooting.

Access to the property for a total of four hours had been requested in order to allow experts for the plaintiff, and the city, to collect data regarding lighting conditions and visibility at the time of the shooting.

It was, according to attorneys representing the plaintiff, “a simple request to obtain an inspection of the Property by experts that will address a central factual issue in the case: whether under the lighting conditions at the location and date of the incident that is at the center of the case, Lindani Myeni could see that the person who was pointing a gun and flashlight at him, and telling him to “get on the ground,” was a police officer. To answer this question, experts need to inspect the area where the incident occurred under similar lighting conditions.

From the plaintiff’s motion to compel:

As there was no moon present in the sky at the time and this was a residential street in Nuuanu, it was dark. The Officers were armed with (1) guns, (2) Tasers, and (3) high intensity “tactical” flashlights. The high-intensity lights are blinding at night and, when pointed towards a person, make it impossible for him or her to see anything other than the light and objects in the path of the light beam.

As Mr. Myeni stood still, unarmed, on the side of the driveway of the Subject Property just a few feet off the street, one of the Officers — while hysterical screams of “that’s him” emanated from a person standing in the doorway of the house on the Property – – suddenly shone the flashlight directly in Mr. Myeni’s eyes and held a pistol in the flashlight beam pointed at Mr. Myeni and demanded that he “get on the ground” without stating he was a police officer. Plaintiff alleges that the Officer holding the pistol knew or reasonably should have known of the effect of the high-intensity flashlight on Mr. Myeni’s vision and his inability to discern the identity of the officer or any lawful purpose in his action.

And from a later legal memo:

The police officers will undoubtedly testify to what they saw and could see, and how the lighting was. Mr. Myeni – who Plaintiff contends could not see Defendant Orosco given his statement “who are you, who are you’ – is not here to testify to what he saw and perceived in the moments before he was shot. Plaintiff, his widow, was not there and cannot testify to contradict the Defendants. Her experts are the only way the jury can be shown the truth.

The owner of record of the property is identified in real estate records as James H. Hall. Hall took title to the property via a quitclaim deed in a somewhat murky 2018 transaction. The purchase came less than a year after he and his family were evicted from the last of a series of homes where they had squatted without payments for several years. Hall purchased Greentree Properties LLC for a reported $3 million from now disbarred Honolulu attorney Gary Dubin, who had represented Hall in efforts to block his eviction. Greentree’s only asset was the Coelho Way home, which Hall immediately deeded to himself.

However, a pending foreclosure lawsuit alleges that the home is still owned by Dubin, who took out a $2 million mortgage loan used for his original purchase of the property. Dubin alleges the property fell into foreclosure because Hall failed to fulfill his part of the deal, which required Hall to pay all of the property’s current expenses, including the mortgage, property taxes, etc. When payments on the mortgage loan stopped, the bank eventually went to court to foreclose on the property.

Dubin claims in legal filings in the foreclosure case that he retained a small interested in the Coelho Way property, giving him grounds to seek the return of some or all of the property from Hall.

The dispute between Hall and Dubin is playing out in the foreclosure case, but is not at issue in the Myeni lawsuit against the city, where Hall’s attorneys had fought for months to block any access to the property to study lighting conditions, saying their client, Hall, had raised a string of objections. Hall’s attorneys eventualy said obtaining a court order would be the only way to proceed.

Longtime readers of this blog might recognize the Coelho Way address, and Hall’s name, since they were the focus of several previous posts on this blog.

Warning–it’s a long, convoluted tale, and the overall picture is murky at best. Hall is not a party to the current civil lawsuit against the city, although the strange history of the property’s title is very much part of the background of the case.

“The squatters next door,” 1/20/2020

“The hotel next door,” 10/12/2021

“A history of dubious deals, Part 1,” 3/5/2022

“A history of dubious deals, Part 2,” 3/6/2022

Excerpts from Hall’s 2021 deposition taken in the Myeni lawsuit are attached to the motion asking the court to require Hall to allow inspection of the property by technical consultants.

In the deposition, Hall describes himself as a property manager. “I manage real estate,” he said, including Airbnb rentals of the Coelho way house, and a Waikiki condominium unit.

Hall said that in addition to income as a property manager, he also has some income property from non-real estate investments.

In addition, Hall said that he owns seven cars which he offers for rent.

Hall described his purchase of Greentree Properties, and the Coelho Way property, as a $3 million “structured arrangement.”

In response to a question, he said he was unsure of how much he had paid to date, but said it was between $500,000 and one million.

A dispute between Hall and Dubin over the Coelho property is playing out in the foreclosure case, in which Dubin has filed a counterclaim against the lender what he alleges were procedural defects in the foreclosure, and against Hall, who Dubin alleges has not fulfilled his financial obligations in the deal.

Next: Suggestions of tax fraud

No, we don’t need to coddle the sovereignty fringe

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Here’s a commment that arrived in my inbox yesterday that’s worth sharing and deserves a substantive reply.

I have long been an avid reader of this column, however I think you (Ian), do yourself injustice by implying sovereignty folks have no basis to stand on. It is such a singular view of a colonizer.

Does not every single person on this planet deserve self-determination and sovereignty?

It may be easy to dismiss such land claims, but speak to enough locals, and you will hear stories about outright theft in the land “transfers”, from strange names appearing in the tax ledgers who would turn up later to lay claim, to new names replacing owner ones when transferring deeds from paper to computer.

While I appreciate you can’t very well give any of this any credence, because, as you say, it would jeopardize every home/tract here, and we can’t have that, can we, that does not mean that theft did not occur during the Mahele. I just think it is disingenuous and in the interest of the dominant (occupying) culture, to gloss over that fact.

Signed, always been a fan, but don’t appreciate the condescension on matters relating to Kanaka Maoli.

To be clear. I have never implied that there is no basis for aspirations for Hawaiian sovereignty.

But I am extremely critical of “sovereignty folks” who rely on half-truths, untruths, misrepresentations, the denial of history, suspension of disbelief, or plain old lies, as the basis for their claims.

And I think that those who would just shrug and excuse these distortions do a disservice to those who are pursuing or have grounds for valid land claims, as those claims based on pure mumbo jumbo confuse the issues and devalue legitimate claims that stand up to scrutiny.

In addition, of course, we allow proponents of these off-base ideas to (a) use them to deceive and rip off others, or (b) get themselves into rapidly increasing legal jeopardy with the risk of escalating penalties out here in the “real” world.

One problem in my reporting on the case of the Kunia land claimants is that I have tried to present their case in reasonable terms, rather than highlighting the batshit crazy stuff they have been repeatedly filing in court.

So I’ve attached the latest legal memo filed in the case this week, a motion to set aside the default judgement against them in the Circuit Court ejectment lawsuit that resulted in their eviction and nine arrests. The response by the landowner’s attorney can be found here.

The motion was submitted by Travis and Kaiulani Mokiao, a brother and sister who have adopted new Hawaiian aliases.

Among their bizarre stuff are some substantive claims. At item #6, they say one of the defendants, Wayne Kaleimamahu, was not properly served. They have argued this same point several times before, and it was answered. And the very simple answer is that Kaleimamahu was dropped as a defendant after his arrest and incarceration. Period. He’s no longer part of the case, and so no longer needs to be served any of the legal papers. The court record is clear on this.

And it should be noted that the Mokiaos have repeatedly tried to stall or deflect the legal process by claiming they were not properly served. If true, it would be a valid concern. However, evidence shows they have repeatedly prevented documents from being served and have used their newly adopted names as covers to ignore or avoid service made using their legal names.

A video submitted as evidence in court after they applied for a temporary restraining order against the landowner’s agent, Tom Berg, shows that Berg packed legal documents in a box, carefully marked with the case number, and dropped in over the gate into the property that had been occupied. Several people came forward, including two named defendants in the case, and not only threw the box of what they termed “rubbish” back over the gate as Berg retreated, they continued to follow him, repeatedly throwing or kicking the box of papers in his direction while chasing him from the area. To then step forward later and complain about the lack of “proper service” is a very transparent fraud.

Later, they say several earlier court filings included affidavits in their names which made allegations and included a demand for answers to be filed with 10 or 21 days, with a twist: “Their non-response is treated as consent to judgment.”

Of course, that’s a total fiction. A failure to respond to an arbitrary demand carries no legal penalties at all. Ask a lawyer. Sometimes you can learn something.

Honestly, I don’t see any advantage in “normalizing” this kind of approach to the issues, which necessarily undermines legitimate Hawaiian claims.

In any case, read on if you’re interested.

Motion to set aside default… by Ian Lind