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Senate moves HB277 forward after robust debate; lawmakers amend pursuit standard, refer model policy work to Judiciary and LESB
Summary
After extensive testimony from law enforcement, civil‑liberties groups and chiefs, senators passed House Bill 277 with amendments that change how vehicular pursuit authority is defined and which agency will analyze pursuit data.
Senators advanced House Bill 277 on March 10 after a lengthy hearing that featured police chiefs, the Law Enforcement Standards Board (LESB), civil‑liberties groups and national policing experts.
HB277 would establish statewide standards for police vehicular pursuits and require reporting and transparency measures. Deputy Attorney General Mark Tom and the Law Enforcement Standards Board offered comments urging the LESB to lead development of a model policy; the LESB’s representative, Deputy Adrienne Dokwa, asked committees to defer to the board because it was created to produce model policies and training standards. Several county police departments, including the Hawaii County Police Department and the Honolulu Police Department (HPD), testified in opposition to statutory codification of chase policies, arguing that departmental discretion and accreditation standards should guide pursuit policy.
Civil‑liberties groups including the ACLU of Hawaii and national groups such as the Policing Project argued that clearer statewide rules, reporting and transparency are needed. Josh Parker of the Policing Project said jurisdictions elsewhere have limited pursuits to violent crimes and that HB277’s data-collection and LESB model-policy provisions should be retained; the Policing Project suggested a technical amendment to ensure the definition of qualifying crimes captures serious conduct that does not always include physical injury.
Honolulu Police Chief (name given in testimony) told the committee HPD maintains a publicly available and restrictive pursuit policy updated in August 2024 and opposed the bill’s statutory approach, urging the LESB and departments to continue developing policy internally. Other chiefs described departmental pursuit policies, training, and post‑pursuit review processes.
Committee amendments adopted in decision-making removed a prescriptive enumerated list of crimes from the statute, instead allowing law enforcement to initiate a pursuit on reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed or is being committed. The committees also accepted a recommendation to have the Attorney General serve as the data-analyzing agency rather than the Department of Law Enforcement (DLE) to avoid potential conflicts of interest. The chair noted a defective effective date needs correction in subsequent drafts.
Committees passed HB277 with those amendments and sent the bill to the Judiciary committee for additional consideration.
