FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Police officer Tenari Maafala gave Bowen Goto a hug during yesterday's funeral service at Borthwick Mortuary for Bowen's father, HPD solo bike officer Ryan Goto, who was killed last week in a chain-reaction accident near Honokai Hale.
HPD officers honor a fallen
colleague, recalling his love
for work and family
Solo bike officer John Jervis was riding next to fellow officer Ryan Keith Goto on the morning Goto was killed.
Both men were in the front of the five-man police motorcycle formation going down Farrington Highway on July 23. But when a Dodge Stratus heading in the other direction crossed the median, Jervis and the officer riding behind him swerved out of the way. Goto, 35, and two other officers did not.
"We will ride again, and I will have an opportunity to look to my left again and see Ryan there. I believe that," Jervis said yesterday in a eulogy for his fellow officer.
"Ryan Goto was one of the people that make the Honolulu Police Department Hawaii's finest. ... We're all better for knowing him."
Jervis was among close to a thousand of Goto's family, friends and co-workers who gathered to remember the man at Borthwick Mortuary yesterday afternoon. The list also included other members of HPD, fire and ambulance personnel, and federal law enforcement representatives.
Officers traded stories and shared memories about the big man with the big heart who was looking forward to his new life with fiancee Dawn Metzger and bringing up his 6-year-old son, Bowen.
FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
At yesterday's service for HPD officer Ryan Goto, officer Tenari Maafala talked to Goto's son, Bowen, outside Borthwick Mortuary."That's his pride and joy. That's what he lived for, his son, to one day see his son graduate," said Officer Teneri Maafala, president of the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers. "Unfortunately, God had other plans for him."
Goto's family and friends said his other passions were HPD, motorcycles and the open road.
"Ryan was born to ride. His passion for riding outweighed the hazards of this job," recalled solo bike officer John Esteban during the eulogy. "One of his favorite words before we went riding was 'chop-chop.'
"He just wanted to get out there and ride."
After Goto graduated from Mililani High School in 1986, he enrolled in the Army Reserves and later got a job as a corrections officer at the Waiawa Correctional Facility. In 1990 he entered the police academy, the first step toward his dream of becoming a Honolulu police officer.
Eight years later, Goto merged his dream job with his dream hobby and joined the police solo bike detail. The job, police officials note, has as many dangers as it does perks.
"Of the 38 officers who have been killed (since the 1920s) that we have memorialized, 11 of them have been solo bike officers," said Police Chief Lee Donohue. "That's a high percentage."
FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
After the funeral, officers marched and passed in formation.
Traffic investigators are not done with the case, which caused the deaths of Goto and 10-year-old Alacia Williams, who was riding in the passenger seat of the car that collided with the police officers.
The collision started after Alacia's mother, Karen Williams, swerved to avoid a box that had fallen in the middle of the highway, police have said. The car was hit from behind by another car, sending the Williams' vehicle across a grassy median and into the path of the solo bike officers heading in the Waianae direction.
Karen Williams and officers David Bega Jr. and Paul Javier were hospitalized after the crash. Bega and Williams were released earlier this week, while Javier remains in the Queen's Medical Center.
There were no answers during services yesterday, only words of support for Goto's family and his fellow officers.
"Police officer Ryan Goto was called to pay the supreme sacrifice," said Chaplain Owen Mullen. "Why it should be him or why it should be under these circumstances is known only to you, oh Lord."
Maafala said: "It can happen any day, you can never tell. That's why I always tell the guys to don't take for granted your love for your loved ones.
"It doesn't make you less of a man to tell a fellow brother officer or sister officer that you love them, have a great day and have a safe day out there.
"Again, you can never tell."
Goto's uncle Lionel Aono quoted writer W. Somerset Maugham: "'The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.'
"Ryan never ceased to love," Aono continued. "He was one of the most loving people I have ever known."
Goto will be buried today at Hawaiian Memorial Park after a police motorcade from the mortuary, past police headquarters on Beretania Street and on to the park in Kaneohe. The procession begins at 9 a.m., and burial services start at 10 a.m.
