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Honolulu Police Department arrest logs from March 25th-June 15 showed racial disparities in enforcement of emergency orders that told people to stay at home to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Another group advocates worried about: those experiencing homelessness https://twitter.com/wearehpr/status/1277678222797410304
Micronesian people made up 26% of those arrested but only make up about 1% of the general population. Members of Black and Samoan communities were also arrested at a proportion greater than their representation in the population.
Josie Howard at We Are Oceania thought there could be three reasons for the high number of arrests of Micronesian people: language barriers, lack of cultural understanding and potential targeting based on race.
About 1 in 5 of those arrested had indicators that they were experiencing homelessness. Of that group, 60% were cited multiple times for violating the stay-at-home orders despite being exempt.
HPD Chief Susan Ballard was not made available to comment on this story-- but the department spokeswoman said they would be sticking with Ballard's previous comments on the subject https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/06/honolulu-police-chief-hopes-nationwide-reform-movement-skips-hawaii/
If you're curious how I got this information and the steps it took to get three months of arrest logs from HPD, I'll outline that process in a thread here.
HPD Assistant Chief Lisa Mann said HPD only enforces based on public complaints and people's actions. She said HPD is considering implementing implicit bias training-- but there is not yet a timeline for when that would be implemented.
