Disgraced law enforcement officers and ex-felons are among Hawaii’s licensed security guards

As Honolulu police officer Ryan Hitoshi Konishi faced charges in 2020 for assaulting a family member that were likely to end his career, he resigned. In fall 2024, after two years of probation and community service, he became a licensed security guard.

The year Konishi left the department, officer Sheldon V. Watts Jr. was found by HPD to have lied to investigators about a vehicle pursuit that resulted in multiple pedestrian deaths. While his case lingered in arbitration until he was finally discharged from HPD last year, he also got licensed as a guard.

Konishi and Watts are two of least seven former local law enforcement officers who resigned while under investigation or were discharged for violations including domestic assault, DUI, sexual harassment and privacy breaches and remain licensed today as security guards by the state Board of Private Detectives and Guards.

Court records indicate that at least two dozen other licensed guards have criminal histories including convictions for assault, Class C drug felonies, domestic abuse, identity theft and shoplifting. Some of their licenses were issued under condition that they provide proof to the state licensing board at a later date that they have completed court-ordered rehabilitation programs or terms of probation.

While not all have renewed their certification in subsequent years, the decisions to license them in the first place raise questions about whether legislation passed in 2013 to shore up oversight of security guards is working as planned.

That’s a key concern in an island state that has among the highest concentrations of security guard jobs in the country, according to the most recent data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just below the District of Columbia and above Nevada, New York and California — a byproduct of its tourism-heavy economy.

Civil Beat identified the former officers by cross-checking a list of licensed private guards and detectives provided by the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs against the police misconduct reports filed with the Legislature and other reporting.

Reached by phone this week, Konishi declined to comment. Watts confirmed via phone that he was still certified by DCCA’s board but would not comment further.

Over the past decade the board has issued over 15,000 licenses for private guards and detectives enabling them to work for large guard agencies like Allied Universal and Securitas and smaller enterprises like hospitals, stores, Waikiki resorts and individual homes. At the end of 2024, nearly 12,000 people had active licenses, according to board minutes.

The board was established in 2010 through Act 208 to regulate the private security industry after a Senate conference committee found that the “proliferation of the use of guards and private security forces” with no formal training posed a risk to public safety.

While guard applicants now undergo a fingerprint-based federal and state criminal background check through the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center, experts in the field said that in reality, the onus is on prospective employers to ensure the guards they hire are qualified and suitable for the role.

Former board member and ex-HPD Maj. Jeffrey Owens, who runs the private security agency and training center Transcend, pointed out that the board is only required to establish that applicants meet the minimum legal requirements. Those include a minimum age of 18, a high school diploma or equivalent and the completion of a compulsory training course.

The board can reject applicants who “have been convicted … of a crime which reflects unfavorably on the fitness of the individual to act as a guard” or who lack a history of “honesty, truthfulness, financial integrity and fair dealing,” according to the statute. But it rarely does so, according to two former board members and an analysis of board minutes.

The board “does not go out and do background checks with former employers, employment history, or any disciplinary actions,” Owens said.

The Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs denied multiple requests to interview the current board chair Scott Collins, or staff who work directly with the board. Department spokesperson William Niheu said in an email that the board investigates the background, character, competency and integrity of applicants.

“The Board conducts its due diligence in the review of applications,” he said, “and routinely requests supplemental documentation and information from applicants meriting additional consideration due to criminal convictions.”

The board includes two industry members, two county police chiefs, two members of the public and an ex-officio representative of DCCA. It meets four to six times a year.

The board has two vacancies after the recent resignations of the Big Island and Honolulu police chiefs. But Niheu said it only needs four members to establish a quorum and will be able to conduct business as usual until new appointments are made.

‘A Balancing Act’

During his year on the board, former Big Island Police Chief Ben Moszkowicz told Civil Beat that in his experience, most of those submitting applications were regular people who had “stayed out of trouble their whole life, and wanted to work in the profession.” Their applications sailed through.

But he acknowledged the board sometimes granted licenses to people he would never himself hire.

“It’s kind of a balancing act,” Moszkowicz said, noting the board must weigh the severity of past wrongdoing, how recent it was and its relevance to the role of security guard.

“There’s a vast array of security jobs out there in the community from people who on a great day have absolutely no interaction with the public at a car park in the middle of nowhere, all the way to the other end of the spectrum where people are working in sensitive areas like a school,” he said.

For example, he said, a DUI arrest from three years ago may not preclude an applicant from being licensed if that person provides evidence that they successfully completed court-ordered supervision.

“As a police leader,” he said, recalling his time on the board, “one of the things I had to consciously separate myself from was ‘would I want to hire this person as a police officer?’ as opposed to ‘should this person be licensed to do something in the field?’”

Moszkowicz stressed that companies are ultimately responsible for the people they hire.

Ex-Cops Not An Instant Fit For Security

A wrongful death civil lawsuit filed in August alleged that two private guards employed by Allied Universal assaulted a 53-year-old man at Lihue Airport who later died.

One of the defendants, Barry DeBlake, had been fired from the Kauai Police Department in 2024 for creating a hostile work environment, and he lacked the required state certification from the DCCA board. In an email, Allied Universal said it does not comment on pending lawsuits.

It would be natural to assume that there is a lot of overlap between ex-law enforcement and the security industry. However, a recent study completed last year of around 300,000 licensed security guards in Florida found that only 2% had previously worked in public policing and only 1% of guards go on to work in law enforcement.

Former police officers, including those with previous disciplinary issues, are more likely to move into security management positions, the same study found.

The skills required for effective policing don’t automatically transfer to the private sector either, said Ed Howard, a 27-year veteran of county and state law enforcement who runs his own security company, Pax Bello Security Solutions.

He said he had firsthand experience after leaving law enforcement when he became a security manager in health care and had to deal with violent incidents.

“My first instinct in the first two weeks of work was to take the person down rather than understanding that they’re a patient,” he recalled. “You have to have some finesse and use de-escalation to get compliance without the physical arrest power you had as police.”

Training Modules Need Updating

Hawaii applicants must complete eight hour-long training modules that cover topics such as the regulations for powers of arrest, search and seizure, and use of force. Armed guards must complete additional specialized training and have a state firearms permit.

Hawaii’s training requirements are higher than most of those across the country. Twenty states require no training to be certified as a security guard, and 10 don’t require any certification at all, according to the National Association of Security Companies. At the other end of the spectrum, Florida, California, Alaska, Oklahoma and Washington, D.C., require 40 hours or more of pre-certification training for unarmed guards.

While more training is always better, eight hours is the state requirement and is adequate to provide the basics, Owens said. But he added that the curriculum for that training is overdue for an update.

“We’ve been doing this for 13-plus years, so some stuff is more relevant than the others,” he said.

The training modules were developed under the assumption that most private security guards would work for security agencies, but Owens said today most guards end up working for companies whose primary business is hospitality, retail or health care.

He would like to see greater emphasis on training in verbal intervention and de-escalation skills.

Additional training in de-escalation would benefit unarmed security staff because of the risks they often face, Owens said. Guards have faced fatal attacks, including one in 2022 in which 58-year-old Michael Stubbs died of a fractured skull while he was working as a guard in Fort Street Mall.

But the board can only enforce what is permitted under the legislation, Owens said, and ensure guards have completed a compulsory four-hour training module when they apply for recertification. In 2013 that was every two years, but in 2018 recertification was changed to every three years.

“I’d like to see annual recertification,” Owens said. “A lot can happen in three years.”

DCCA had previously required instructors to attest to completing the continuing education, but in 2021 licensed guards were allowed to self-attest to completion, rather than requiring confirmation from an instructor or uploaded documentation.

The board instead implemented a system of random audits of the licensed guards to verify compliance. The last audit in December 2024 sampled 358 people. DCCA did not respond to a request for the results of the audit.

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This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.