When a former reserve police officer pleaded guilty in Honolulu’s Federal District Court last week to lying about a violent encounter in a Chinatown game room in September 2014, it brought unaccustomed public scrutiny to the program that puts unpaid volunteers with badges, guns and police powers on the streets.

In the September incident, Joe Becera was one of three police officers who went to the game room to serve a warrant but were unable to find the person named. A security camera caught one of the officers punching and kicking two men who were present, then hitting one of them with a stool. When the video surfaced publicly, Becera filed a police report that failed to mention the assault, and also told FBI agents investigating the incident that he hadn’t seen anything, according to the federal charges.

Becera resigned following the game room incident after 37 years with the department.

Reserve officers once made up about a third of Honolulu’s police force, but the percentage is far lower now.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Becera could have been a poster boy for the Honolulu Police Department’s reserve officer program. He was recognized as HPD’s “Reserve Officer of the Year” four times, in 2002, 2004, 2008 and most recently in 2012.

According to a 2008 City Council honorary resolution,  Becera at that time was assigned to the department’s crime reduction unit in District 5, covering the area from Salt Lake to Nuuanu, and “participated in every search warrant executed last year for various types of investigations including 17 federal arrest warrants.”

In a television news broadcast when he received the 2012 award, Becera, who was then 75 years old, appeared fit and vigorous.

“You have to stay in shape. Otherwise, you’re out,” Becera told a reporter in 2009. “This is what’s keeping me alive.”

But his guilty plea in federal court on a coverup charge has triggered questions about the role of volunteers in policing, and broader questions of whether HPD should have a mandatory retirement age applicable to all officers.

The Reserve Officer Program

Honolulu’s reserve police officer program was launched in July 1941, just months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The program aimed at creating an “emergency” police reserve which could supplement the regular police. The first class of the new police reserve “consisted of 150 leading business men, lawyers, executives, legislators, and others,” according to a description by then-chief W.A. Gabrielson.

The trainees did several hours of classroom work a week, and “walked or rode a beat with a police officer one night a week learning the location of persons living in that area.”

When they graduated and earned their badges just days before the Dec. 7 attack, the new reserve force expanded the regular 325-man police force by more than 46 percent. Nearly one out of every three Honolulu police officers in December 1941 was a reserve.

Today’s program appears to be much different.

A 2002 opinion by the City Ethics Commission provided this summary:

Honolulu reserve police officers are nowhere near the major resource in case of emergency that they were when the program began.

“A reserve police officer serves for no pay, but receives reimbursement for automobile fuel expended in the service of HPD and is covered under the city’s workers compensation and disabilities programs. The job description for a reserve officer is similar to that of a regular officer. Like a regular officer, a reserve officer must follow HPD’s Standards of Conduct, is issued and carries a firearm, carries a badge, wears the standard HPD uniform, possesses and uses all the authority of a police officer and receives supervision from HPD.”

According the HPD’s 2014 annual report, the department had 1,973 sworn officers.

How many reserve officers does the department have today? We don’t know. The reserve program isn’t mentioned in the department’s most recent annual report, except that several reserve officers are listed among retirees or award recipients. News reports in recent years put the number at about 70, which would be just over 3 percent of the total police force.

These unpaid officers, who are required to put in at least five hours per week, obviously save the city some money. But their small numbers, and their relatively limited experience, mean reserves are nowhere near the major resource in case of emergency that they were when the program began.

The reserve program is now lodged in HPD’s Community Affairs Section, which also operates other special programs such as the department’s museum, speakers bureau, Hoiki and graffiti hotlines, Ride-Along program, and several community police academies, while also managing community relations.

Some, like Becera, take part in regular police operations, while  others assist with “various special events such as Police Week, Drug Abuse Resistance Education Day, Troy Barboza Torch Run, Memorial Day, Explorers’ Conference, Honolulu City Lights Electric Light Parade and the annual city employees’ Christmas party,” according to a recent annual report.

At least one HPD reserve officer was killed in the line of duty. In October 1969,  Reserve Officer Ernest Lindemann was escorting a woman to retrieve belongings from her home when her husband attacked the officer, grabbed his gun, and fatally shot him. Lindemann was 56, and an 18-year veteran.

National attention was focused on reserve officers after a Tulsa reserve sheriff shot and killed an unarmed suspect earlier this year. The 73-year-old volunteer said he mistakenly grabbed and fired his pistol instead of his taser. He now faces manslaughter charges.

Was the officer’s “mistake” a reflection of age-related slowing of reflexes and mental processes? We don’t know, but the case has prompted questions about whether reserve officers are adequately trained and prepared for regular police work, and whether they should have to retire at a certain age.

How Old is Too Old?

Becera, at 77, was far from the oldest of those who have served as Honolulu reserve officers. For example, Roger Piwowarski was 84 when he retired in 2002 after 52 years as a reserve officer. But whether such longevity on the force is common or a rarity isn’t known.

Following the charges against Becera, Sen. Will Espero, vice-chair of the Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs, queried Police Chief Louis Kealoha  about whether there is a point at which police officers must step down from active duty.

As Civil Beat reported, the department responded that the Americans With Disabilities Act prevents the department from implementing a mandatory retirement age.

So are we stuck with aging law enforcement officers at all levels due to the federal law?

The quick answer seems to be “no,” although like so many issues where broad public policy and legal technicalities mix, there may be shades of gray that teams of lawyers could argue about for years.

Mandatory retirement is not the only way to deal with aging officers, whether regular or reserve.

Since at least 1996, the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act has exempted government firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical personnel from the broad federal ban on age limits and mandatory retirement for employees, at least under certain conditions.

Federal law enforcement officers face mandatory retirement, which the Department of Justice has set at 57.

Mandatory retirements require authorization in state or local law, and also must be related to requirements of a bona fide retirement plan.

This seems to mean that a mandatory retirement age applicable to regular police officers, who are covered by Hawaii’s Employees Retirement System, would be permitted.

But what about volunteers like Honolulu’s unpaid reserve officers? Here it gets trickier.

A federal court in Virginia threw out an employment discrimination claim by a 63-year-old auxiliary deputy sheriff who was informed he was being pulled from a criminal apprehension unit because of his age. The court ruled that this didn’t amount to employment discrimination because, quite simply, the man was an unpaid volunteer and not an “employee” for purposes of the statute.

Honolulu ordinances also make clear that volunteers are not considered “employees of the city” when acting in their volunteer capacities (see Section 2-27.5(c), Revised Ordinances of Honolulu). So this might provide an easy way to deal with the issue.

And mandatory retirement is not the only way to deal with aging officers, whether regular or reserve. There are clearly many jobs within the police department that don’t have the same physical requirements as those of officers on the street. Shifting aging reserve officers to other kinds of volunteer duties would certainly seem an appropriate way to accommodate aging without pushing them off the force.

In any case, the whole police reserve program needs a thorough re-examination, and the Becera case should trigger that process.