The Honolulu City Council is considering whether to approve a veteran former police chief as the latest addition to the city’s police oversight board.
After watching a lackluster performance by Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s previous Honolulu Police Commission nominee at a City Council hearing in May, Christopher Magnus, who retired to Honolulu in 2023, reached out to the mayor with policing advice. Blangiardi was impressed and nominated him to the commission instead.
“I had three prior attempts to try to put somebody with police experience (on),” Blangiardi said last week. “Unable to do so. And then along comes a guy like Chris, and it just sort of jumps off the paper.”
If approved by the full City Council, Magnus will join the seven-person volunteer commission as it is searching for a new police chief. Beleaguered former chief Joe Logan retired last month, roughly two years before the end of his five-year term. Logan later said he was forced out by Blangiardi, and has sued the city for $780,000…