The latest Honolulu Police Department problem is a scandal in the making over a concealed weapon.
Police commissioner Mark D. Hunsaker has been accused of carrying a loaded handgun when he joined HPD officers as they prepared to close down a Waianae cockfight recently.
It’s a felony in Hawaii to carry a concealed weapon without a proper permit, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Hunsaker rode along with the police officers to Waianae. One of them said Hunsaker carried a loaded handgun in his hip holster.
Apparently the police officer who made the allegation is being investigated himself by the department’s Internal Affairs. Hunsaker’s attorney admitted that two other officers saw a holster on the commissioner, but no gun. He said Hunsaker usually wears a Kevlar vest with a utility belt and the holster is for a radio and flashlight.
This whole bizarre story begs the question– what’s a “concealed weapon?”
If it’s a handgun stuck inside a holster is that really concealed? After all, what do you expect to be inside a holster except a handgun? Do parts of the handgun hang outside the holster, thereby making it obvious there’s a gun inside, thereby removing concealed from the phrase?
Is it a concealed weapon if everyone knows it’s there?
By today’s standards, Roy Rogers packed a concealed weapon. So did the Lone Ranger. Their handguns were in a holster at their side for all the world to see and fear.
Where’s the outcry over their crime?
Sorry guys, there was no “firearm”. While I am a sworn police officer and as such may carry a firearm under federal law in all 50 States as well as U.S. Territories 24/7, I do not carry a firearm while on ride-alongs in my capacity as a Honolulu Police Commissioner. I do, however, wear some of my police “web gear” on ride-alongs, including my police flashlight and flashlight holster, my HPD issued police radio and radio holster, earpiece and attendant wires, HPD Badge on a chain around my neck, but without a firearm. I wear my aloha shirt “untucked” to cover this equipment, which could (and has) easily been mistaken for a full web belt, to include a firearm. The officer who “thought” he saw a firearm on my belt was not the officer I rode with and he was obviously mistaken. This officer only mentioned this matter 1 year after the alleged event, and only during an interview of him by a Police Commission Investigator during a Honolulu Police Commission investigation of him resulting from a complaint of misconduct made against him. You do the math.