Honolulu police accused of arresting sober drivers to inflate DUI numbers
The Honolulu Police Department is reviewing both current and past DUI arrests after the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii filed a class action lawsuit claiming officers wrongly took some drivers into custody. The lawsuit alleged that officers arrested sober individuals in a push to boost drunk driving stats.
The ACLU accused Honolulu police of falsely arresting drivers without any probable cause or due process of the law.
On May 22, the ACLU of Hawaii sent a letter to the Honolulu Police Department outlining claims from multiple drivers who said officers arrested them despite negative alcohol tests. It’s the second time the civil rights group has raised this issue, pointing to a troubling pattern of arrests that, they argued, lack clear evidence of impairment.
Just seven days later, on Thursday, May 29, the ACLU filed a lawsuit alleging that officers arrested more than 100 people on suspicion of DUI over two years. The ACLU said an investigation by a local news outlet, Hawaii News Now, first brought the issue to the public’s attention.
The report states that officers arrested 69 drivers between 2022 and 2023, even though breath and blood tests showed no alcohol in their systems. Hawaii News Now found that Honolulu’s prosecutor’s office dropped nearly 80% of DUI cases tied to these arrests.
The lawsuit names three drivers arrested by Honolulu police as lead plaintiffs but represents dozens more who reported similar experiences.
In Hawaii, like most states, the legal limit for blood alcohol content (BAC) is 0.08%.
Plaintiffs share first-hand accounts
Two of the three plaintiffs named in the case are Sarah Poppinga and Ammon Fepuleai. In 2023, the Honolulu Police Department pulled over Poppinga after she left an entertainment venue with a friend. According to the ACLU, officers stopped her for a broken tail light and asked her to take a field sobriety test. Under Hawaii law, the test is optional, so Poppinga declined. She said officers arrested her seconds later, and she later registered no alcohol content on a breathalyzer test at the police station.
“I didn’t have any alcohol in my system, and I just felt it was unfair,” Poppinga said.
Fepuleai had a similar experience that year while passing through a DUI checkpoint on the island. An officer claimed to smell alcohol, and although the breathalyzer test showed a 0.00, the officer still arrested Fepuleai. Authorities never filed charges. Authorities never filed any charges.
Honolulu Police Department’s response to lawsuit
In a statement to The Associated Press, a spokesperson for the Honolulu Police Department said they are reviewing all DUI arrests dating back to 2021. The spokesperson added that they take these allegations very seriously.
In Honolulu Police Department’s 2024 annual report, they said 1,501 adults were arrested for driving under the influence. That number was 2,260 in 2023. That same year, the department responded to 56 traffic fatalities, and reported that impairment played a role in 36 of them.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
