LIHUE >> The Honolulu Police Commission has agreed to loan its investigator to the Kauai Police Commission to probe allegations against Kauai Police Chief George Freitas. Outsider to investigate
Kauai’s top copBy Anthony Sommer
tsommer@starbulletin.comMeanwhile, county legal advisers are wrestling with the broad wording in the Kauai County Charter dealing with the removal of a police chief.
The county has refused to discuss the allegations against Freitas.
Numerous sources have said he has been accused of trying to block the investigation of an officer suspected of having sexual relations with an underage girl.
Freitas, whose sole public appearance since the allegations were made public was at a Police Commission meeting last week, has denied that charge.
The officer involved was indicted three years ago and is scheduled to go on trial in three weeks.
The police chief is the only county department head entitled to a disciplinary hearing, and County Attorney Hartwell Blake said he has not been able to find any precedent for handling the investigation.
Other department heads either are hired and fired by the mayor or by an appointed commission such as the Planning Commission. The police chief is the only one entitled to a hearing under the county charter.
Under the state's open-meetings law, Freitas will have the option of keeping the hearing closed or making it open to the public, Blake said.
The Kauai Police Commission voted Aug. 10 to ask Mayor Maryanne Kusaka to place Freitas on paid leave for 120 days while it investigates allegations made against him by a police inspector and lieutenant.
Normally, allegations against an officer would be investigated by the designated internal affairs officer in the department. But the lieutenant who made the accusations against Freitas is the internal affairs investigator.
Because the Kauai Police Commission does not have its own investigator, it was forced to look elsewhere for someone qualified to look into the charges.
Freitas, who was on the mainland when the commission met, was notified on Aug. 13 and has been on leave ever since. He refused a request from the mayor's office to turn in his badge, saying he remains a law enforcement officer even while on leave.
Blake acknowledged the Kauai County Charter provides no specific grounds for dismissal of a police chief (in Honolulu, the commission must find a chief guilty of "gross maladministration," a well-defined legal standard, Blake noted).
"He (the police chief) may be removed by the police commission only after being given a written statement of the charges against him and a hearing before," the Kauai Charter says in the single sentence covering the discipline of a police chief.
"It is very, very broad. It means we're going to have to bend over backwards to be fair," Blake said.
The charter does not give the commission any other options -- such as censure or unpaid suspension -- other than removal.
Blake said the 120-day leave given Freitas is the maximum time allowed in the Police Commission's rules to conduct an investigation.
Kauai County
