The state’s police union said it will work with the Kauaʻi Police Department’s new chief of police, but continues to call for more transparency about the selection process.
On Nov. 21, the Kauaʻi Police Commission made a conditional offer to San Diego Police Department Deputy Chief Rudy Tai to lead the island’s beleaguered police department.
The State of Hawaiʻi Organization of Police Officers said it wants to help Tai succeed, despite its concerns about his past.
“We're committed to working with him and helping him get integrated into the police department — and then leading it out of the rut that it is in that was left by Todd Raybuck,” said SHOPO President Nicholas Schlapak.
In the 1990s, Tai allegedly failed to punish or document the sexual misconduct of a San Diego police officer he was directly supervising.
Over a decade later, that same officer, Anthony Arevalos, was arrested and later convicted for sexually assaulting and bribing women he had pulled over in traffic stops.
Tai has 35 years of experience with SDPD. Born on Oʻahu, he graduated from Pearl City High School, attended San Diego State University, and was hired as a police officer soon after graduating.
SHOPO urged the commission to do what it could to pick the right chief after the controversial tenure of former Chief Todd Raybuck. SHOPO said it’s disappointed by what it considered a quick and secretive process that led to Tai’s selection.
Schlapak said the union’s concerns are focused more on that process.
“We have serious concerns with the selection process, the transparency that the police commission in Kauaʻi did not display when it came to how it chose its four finalists, and then whether or not certain issues in the career backgrounds of those people were brought to light,” he said.
The agenda for the commission’s Nov. 21 meeting was made public a week before, and revealed the names of the four finalists for Kauaʻi’s new police chief. SHOPO said that’s when it first learned about the finalists as well.
Prior to the meeting, the union sent the commission a report detailing its findings about the four candidates using publicly available information.
The union was probably the most concerned about candidate Teresa Ewins, who was the chief of police for Lincoln, Nebraska, from 2021 to 2023. The SHOPO report noted that Ewins had allegedly retaliated against whistleblowers who raised concerns about what it said was the Lincoln Police Department’s “long history … of harassment and inappropriate behavior toward female officers by male officers.”
SHOPO was also concerned about Ewins’ abrupt and unexplained resignation from LPD, which it said continues to be a mystery. Prior to that, Ewins had spent 26 years with the San Francisco Police Department.
SHOPO alleged that the police commission chose to “attack” the union for providing the report on the finalists. It also criticized the commission’s selection process for not including a public discussion, debate or explanation. That worries the union in part because Kauaʻi officers for years have complained about poor working conditions, a lack of leadership and low morale.
A Gallup report in 2024 that surveyed the department’s morale found that 49% of KPD is “actively disengaged,” which means they “aren’t just unhappy at the department — they are resentful that their needs aren’t being met and are acting out their unhappiness.”
SHOPO questioned how much the commission explored the finalists’ backgrounds before choosing them, and continues to call on the group to be more transparent.
Neither Tai nor the commission responded to HPR’s requests for comment, but a County of Kauaʻi spokesperson said in an email that a background investigation will be conducted before the commission gives Tai a final offer of employment.
In an email, the county said, “The Commission is required to follow a process guided by the laws of this State. This process entails a conditional offer of employment be made to a candidate before any background investigation is conducted.”
When a background check is completed, according to the county, the commission will then decide on whether it wants to give Tai a final employment offer.
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