The Price Of Police Misconduct Claims In Honolulu Is Going Up

Honolulu’s payouts for settlements, judgments and claims — mostly related to police misconduct — have risen steadily over the past decade.

A recent record $12.5 million settlement with a man injured in a 2021 police pursuit crash in Makaha will likely cause the city’s liability insurance premium to rise. 

But even as the cost of police misconduct goes up, lawyers and advocates say it may not be enough to prompt police officials to crack down on bad practices and policies. 

The city has paid out $17.3 million in settlements, judgments and claims so far this fiscal year, which ends June 30, according to a city budget document. And while that also includes other municipal matters, the majority is for police-related settlements, according to council member Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, chair of the Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee.

By comparison, the city spent $11.9 million on settlements, judgments and claims last fiscal year and $7.7 million the one before. 

City attorneys estimate Honolulu will need $20 million to cover civil litigation and claims next fiscal year. In a budget document, they cited two unresolved police cases that may result in large payouts — one filed on behalf of a passenger injured in the Makaha crash, and another filed by the widow of Lindani Myeni, fatally shot by Honolulu police in 2021. 

Large payouts can motivate the city to enact better policies and promote more police training. But experts say civil litigation doesn’t usually lead to systemic change. 

Shielded from personal liability, officers are rarely sued as individuals. The money for settlements and judgments usually comes from the city’s executive budget, not the police department’s.

Police also don’t have to admit wrongdoing when agreeing to a settlement, said Jennvine Wong, of the New York City-based Cop Accountability Project, which maintains a database on law enforcement misconduct records.

“Officers are not necessarily disciplined or fired just because they are sued for police misconduct,” she said. “It’s kind of treated as the cost of doing business.” 

Liability Costs Going Up

Insurance premiums related to policing have increased for municipalities across the country, experts say. That includes Honolulu, where the amount the city is required to pay per claim before insurance kicks in rose from $2 million in fiscal year 2019 to $10 million in fiscal year 2022, according to the city’s corporation counsel.

City costs related to the Makaha police pursuit and crash alone are already more than half of what it spent on police-related litigation over a 10-year period, and two lawsuits related to the crash filed by the same plaintiff are pending in state and federal court.

The city has already settled with five occupants of the Honda Civic that crashed in September 2021 following the high-speed police chase — the $12.5 million approved for the driver of the vehicle, Jonaven Perkins-Sinapati, and $4.5 million approved last year for four passengers. (Perkins-Sinapati was arrested and charged this week on multiple gun and drug charges, according to court records.)

Of that total, the city paid $10 million, and $7 million was covered by insurance, according to corporation counsel. For context, the city spent a total of $18 million on police-related lawsuits from 2012 to 2022.

Other major settlements have included $5.25 million and $10 million to two families of victims killed in a fatal crash following a police pursuit in 2019. Of the combined $15.25 million, the city paid $2.9 million, with insurance covering the rest. 

Each year, the city pays about $4.6 million for liability policies through Boston-based Lexington Insurance Company and New Jersey-based Princeton Excess and Surplus Lines Company, city spokesman Ryan Wilson said in an email.

Wilson said the $12.5 million settlement will likely make the price of the policy go up, though he could not predict by how much.

Eric Seitz represents the last person injured in the Makaha crash that hasn’t settled, Dayten Gouveia. Seitz is frustrated the city hasn’t yet made an offer that he views as reasonable for his client’s injuries.

Seitz said the city also has not made an offer in the case of Iremamber Sykap, a 16-year-old who was fatally shot by Honolulu police in 2021. Three officers were initially charged in the shooting, but a judge later ruled they should not be tried.

“We submitted a settlement demand of $10 million, which I thought was fairly small for the life of a boy,” Seitz said. “The city’s offered basically nothing up to now.”

The civil case is scheduled for trial in mid-2025, he said.

In an emailed statement, spokesman Ian Scheuring said the city’s decision to settle with other plaintiffs has no bearing on the Gouveia or Sykap cases. 

“As with any settlement the City considers, for both the Gouveia and Sykap matters, the City has engaged in negotiations in good faith, and will base its decisions on the facts of the case, the opinions of experts, the existing case law, and the rulings of the Court,” the statement says.

‘The Cops Don’t Have To Pay … The Taxpayers Pay’

Honolulu City Council member Val Okimoto, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, said while she voted to approve the $12.5 million for Perkins-Sinapati in March, she is concerned about spending taxpayer dollars on such large settlements. She wants to promote better police training practices to prevent future lawsuits. 

She has objected, though, to taxpayer funds being used to pay for legal representation of officers who have been fired from the police department. She was the only member to vote no when the council approved an additional $100,000 to represent Erik Smith and Jake Ryan Bartolome, two officers accused of being involved in the Makaha pursuit who were discharged from the police department in February. 

So far, about $300,000 has been approved for the representation of the four officers named in the lawsuits — Smith, Bartolome, Robert Lewis III and Joshua Nahulu, who was also discharged. Lewis remains employed by the department.

The officers, all facing criminal charges, are scheduled to stand trial June 3. But the city is only covering their legal fees in the civil matters.

Dos Santos-Tam said the city needs to set aside money for defending officers. If they knew they could be held personally liable, no one would want to do the job, he said.

“We don’t want it to be a regular occurrence, but this is a reality of running a very large city with many, many police officers,” he said. 

HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu did not respond to a request to interview Chief Joe Logan or another department official. She said in the aftermath of the Makaha pursuit and litigation the department’s motor vehicle pursuit policy is “currently being revised and will be finalized this summer.”

In January, another lawsuit related to a police pursuit was filed, this time by a man who said he was rammed and beaten by officers pursuing an armed suspect. The lawsuit is pending in federal court, and the incident is under review by the police department, according to Yu. So far, no officers have been placed on restricted duty. 

Seitz said city taxpayers should be angered by the amount spent on lawsuits and settlements related to the police. 

“The cops don’t have to pay, the cops don’t lose their houses and their pensions,” he said. “Which means the taxpayers pay. Why aren’t the taxpayers up in arms screaming at the police department to run their operations in a much better manner?”