Pride and Passion in Being a Police Officer
Ken [NY)
Wailuku, Hawaii - 12/30/2002
Maui News
By LILA FUJIMOTO
After he was assigned to follow up on a lead in a 6-year-old homicide
case, Robert “Butch” Tam Ho found himself playing the part of the
victim to help solve the case.
Questioning a man who confessed to the killing, Tam Ho had the suspect
show how he disposed of the body after the shooting in the summer of
1981 on the hillside leading to the St. Anthony cross near Iao Valley.
“I lay down in the hallway and he demonstrated how he dragged the body
while my partner shot pictures,” Tam Ho recalled. “You got to be
open-minded and do whatever it takes to seal the case.”
While a jury later acquitted the man, who claimed the shooting was in
self-defense, the case was among those that helped establish Tam Ho’s
reputation as a determined investigator with a knack for interrogating
suspects.
Working on homicide investigations as a detective for seven years is
one highlight of Tam Ho’s police career that will end Monday, when he
retires after 30 years in the Maui Police Department. He spent the
last four years as an assistant chief, heading the Uniformed Services
Bureau, which includes the Wailuku, Hana, Kihei, Lahaina, Lanai and
Molokai patrol districts as well as the Traffic Section.
“It’s sad to lose a good friend,” said Deputy Police Chief Kekuhaupio
Akana. “He’s a good counselor. He will be missed.”
Akana said Tam Ho has been an advocate for patrol officers, who make
up most of the Uniformed Services Bureau. With 250 employees and a $12
million budget, the bureau is the largest of three, each under the
direction of an assistant police chief.
“He always fought gallantly for improvements in the patrol
environment,” Akana said. “He fought to give the executive staff the
perspective of what the modern-day patrol officer is burdened with.”
Commanders periodically ride along with patrol officers, most of whom
work 12-hour shifts that result in more days off.
During the period Tam Ho has headed the Uniformed Services Bureau,
participation in annual employee surveys has risen dramatically to 80
percent to 85 percent, Akana said, with responses “more favorable
toward the direction we were heading.”
That’s one reason Tam Ho said he decided to retire now.
“This career has been really great, very exciting, challenging,
rewarding, all the good things,” he said. “But the thing is to go out
at the right time. The right time for me was to go when everything was
good. The department is doing well. From our surveys, our employees
are happy. They feel good about what we’re doing, the direction the
chief is taking.”
Tam Ho has worked under four police chiefs during a career that he
says “just happened by accident and turned out to be great.”
After graduating from Maui High School when it was still in
Hamakuapoko and spending one semester at Maui Community College, “I
wanted to get away,” the Paia native said. “So I joined the Navy.”
He spent two years stationed on the USS McKean, a San Diego-based
destroyer, and was on the gun line in Vietnam for six months.
Back home, Tam Ho was working as a bookkeeper for First Hawaiian Bank
when his father pointed out an ad for police officers in The Maui
News.
In December 1972, Tam Ho became one of 12 members of the 21st Maui
Police Department recruit class.
At the time, there were height, weight and age requirements, and women
weren’t allowed to be police officers.
Instead of having department police cars, officers received car
allowances. Tam Ho used his to buy a new $5,300 Cutlass Supreme, on
which he strapped a blue light when he was assigned to the Lahaina
Patrol District after recruit school. He carried a department-issued
.38-caliber revolver, which has less firepower than the .40-caliber
semiautomatic Glocks issued today.
As a young patrol officer, Tam Ho attended night school to earn a
degree in police science from Maui Community College.
After being promoted to detective sergeant in 1982, Tam Ho was
assigned to investigate white-collar crime because of his banking
background. He also was one of four investigators on the police
homicide team.
“He was a savvy detective and he was a coy investigator and
interviewer,” Akana said. “He taught us the art of interviewing people
on tape.”
Among those that Tam Ho interrogated was Dale Fetalvero, who was
convicted of the 1982 rape and murder of a jogger, Joan Kremers of
Oregon, in a Kaanapali cane field. The murder had been unsolved for
about six years when Tam Ho questioned Fetalvero following his arrest
for a sexual assault in Kihei.
“Working on that case, we got information that he killed somebody,”
Tam Ho said. “He admitted he killed her.”
Tam Ho said he enjoyed the challenge of interrogating suspects.
“To have someone look you in the eye and admit that they killed
somebody or that they raped some little kid, to get them to tell you
and to get them to write it down and to get it down on tape, and do it
all voluntarily — that’s a challenge,” he said.
At times, he also persuaded suspects to draw sketches of their crime
scenes and to re-enact their crimes.
In the Kremers murder case, Tam Ho left the interrogation room to
search for a piece of rope or cord so Fetalvero could demonstrate how
he tied a knot that was found binding the woman. “He said he’ll show
me how he did it,” Tam Ho recalled. “The knots matched.”
Because of his success in interrogating suspects, Tam Ho was assigned
to teach interviewing techniques to new detectives, Akana said.
“He was a low-key person in personality, but he had a great passion
for his job,” Akana said. “He was very proud of being a police
officer.”
Tam Ho also helped investigate the 1983 double murder of Linda White
and her 13-year-old daughter, Keri, who were found dead under a bed in
their apartment at the Maui Islander in Lahaina. In 1986, Anthony
Grattafiori, who was Linda White’s boyfriend, was sentenced to two
consecutive life-prison terms for the killings.
Tam Ho considers investigating homicides the greatest challenge for a
police officer.
“You never forget you’re working for the victim so you want to do a
good job,” he said. “You’re the person they’re counting on to make
things right and have some justice.
“The good thing is there’s no statute of limitations for murder.”
Six years had passed and the victim remained unidentified when
then-police Capt. James Lawrence received new information about the
killing near the St. Anthony cross. Tam Ho and another detective were
assigned to fly to Fort Drum, N.Y., to question the suspect, who had
lived on Maui before joining the Army.
The questioning lasted for about nine hours, Tam Ho recalled, as the
suspect described what happened.
Even though a jury eventually decided the killing was justified, “the
community knows that the person responsible for this killing was
found,” Tam Ho said. “It gives people peace of mind that there’s not
some unknown killer running around in the community.”
With time, he hopes that another of his cases — the 1984 killing of
Julie Ann Sharp — will also be solved. The 19-year-old Kihei resident
was found dead in a Puunene sugar-cane field a couple of days after
her car was found parked along Honoapiilani Highway near McGregor
Point. Her car registration and other papers were found scattered on
Front Street.
“I still have confidence that someday it’s going to be cleared,” Tam
Ho said.
Lawrence, who retired as an assistant police chief, remembered Tam Ho
as a good policeman. “He was humble,” Lawrence said. “He always worked
hard. He did the best for the public and the people.”
After being promoted to lieutenant in 1988, Tam Ho was night commander
in the Molokai Patrol District for one year, was a watch commander in
the Wailuku Patrol District and headed the Internal Affairs Section
for one year.
Promoted to captain in 1995, he was commander of the Lahaina Patrol
District for four years, with the major responsibility of overseeing
police planning for annual Halloween festivities on Front Street.
With the event becoming more popular, police began blocking off a
larger area and tried to keep pedestrians moving to reduce the
potential for conflicts, Tam Ho said. Bands and other activities were
moved off Front Street to Banyan Tree Park, and police set up a
command post atop the former Planet Hollywood where they could control
the volume of music funneled through speakers along the street.
Tam Ho graduated from the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va., in
1997 and was among the candidates for the job of Maui police chief
when Howard Tagomori retired in 1998.
Then, in January 1999, Chief Tom Phillips appointed Tam Ho to be
assistant chief in charge of the division he considers the “backbone
of the department.”
“They are the front line,” Tam Ho said. “If you have good patrol
officers, you’re going to have a good department.”
Tam Ho himself developed a reputation for keeping his cool while he
worked in patrol.
Lt. Charles Hirata, who heads the Traffic Section, recalled hearing
how an officer responding to an emergency call was reassured to see
Tam Ho show up. “He knew everything was going to be all right when
Butch took the comb out of his back pocket and combed his hair and
strode into the scene,” Hirata said.
“It was always fun working with him,” Hirata said. “He’s always been
super supportive of our efforts.”
Tam Ho says it’s the people he will miss the most as he prepares to
leave MPD.
He expects to have more time for surfing, a sport he took up two years
ago and enjoys on weekends with one of his three daughters. Tam Ho and
his wife, Sheri, a teacher at Lihikai School, also have a grandson and
granddaughter.
The 52-year-old plans to spend some time doing work around his Kahului
home before embarking on another career.
“I have no idea what it’s going to be,” he said. “Whatever I do next
is probably going to find me in the same way this job found me.”
Ken (NY)
Chairman,
Department Of Redundancy Department
____________________________________
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An officer is assaulted every 7 minutes,
one is injured every 2.5 hours, and
one is KILLED every other day.