According to Horton, the harassment at the department began with racist comments about fried chicken from another deputy sheriff who is currently on paid leave.
Black Hawaii Deputy Sheriff Martin Horton alleges that colleagues at the State Capitol in Honolulu, Hawaii, subjected him to racial and sexual harassment following his graduation from the police academy in December 2023. Horton’s allegations against his fellow officers’ conduct surfaced as part of a Department of Law Enforcement Criminal Investigation Division probe.
According to Hawaii News Now, the 56-year-old Horton informed investigators that he found the comments he was subjected to humiliating and believes that his rights were violated.
“A reasonable person, if placed in that situation, would have found it offensive, would have found it misogynistic, would have found it discriminatory, because the language that is used, and the people who are targeted are either of a different ethnicity or gender,” Horton told the outlet.
Horton alleges that several superiors, including his training officer, Alvin Turla, and Sgt. Erich Mitamura either made degrading statements themselves or facilitated Horton’s abuses. Turla, Horton said, made comments of a sexual nature relating to his lips. “It was a sexual comment that he had made not just one time, but at least two times, referencing to my lips,” however, when Horton told Mitamura, his response, according to Horton, was dismissive. “His comment to me was that you’re nothing; you’re no one. It devalued me, and as a trainee, he was my sergeant. I accepted it.”
The two officers Horton named have been arrested for harassment, which is a misdemeanor charge, placed on paid leave, and have had their service weapons, badges, and IDs taken.
Horton continued, “I can’t categorize it as being criminal, but as a subordinate…when something to that magnitude where someone is being degraded, they’re being humiliated in the sense, I felt like my rights were being violated. For me, that is a big issue now because I’m worried about my family. Who’s going to retaliate against me? I don’t know.”
According to Jordan Lowe, the director of the State Department of Law Enforcement, which oversees the State Capitol building’s security, Horton was transferred from the state capital to the Kapolei Courthouse for his protection. According to Horton, the harassment at the department began with racist comments about fried chicken from another deputy sheriff who is currently on paid leave. Although Horton maintains that additional deputies harassed him, their statuses are presently unknown. The department is currently the subject of three separate criminal investigations.
As the Honolulu Civil Beat reported, Lowe indicated that five other Capitol staffers have been placed on paid leave while their conduct is investigated. Lowe described their investigations as “both administrative and criminal.”
This brings the total number of officers who have been suspended as a result of investigations into the state Capitol to eight. According to a source who spoke to the outlet, comments were made about watermelon in addition to those Horton mentioned about fried chicken, which was not reported up the chain of command. The source also told the outlet that the harassment Horton alleges occurred between late December 2023 and March 2024 during briefings at the start of the deputies’ shifts at the Capitol.
Lowe told the Civil Beat that after the department was officially created in January 2024, “we found these isolated instances of misconduct, so obviously we are not going to tolerate that, and we started investigating it.”
Lowe pleaded with the public to maintain faith in the department despite the scandal, telling the outlet, “We have hundreds of deputies, and we want to remind the public to have full confidence in them because they are dedicated, professional law enforcement officers out there to protect and serve, but as in any organization, sometimes you may have incidents.”
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