A 31-year veteran of the Hawaii Police Department was named Hawaii County’s “Manager of the Year” at a ceremony Nov. 21 in Hilo.
Capt. Robert Wagner is the commander of the Area I Criminal Investigation Division, which includes the Criminal Investigations Section, the Vice Section, the Juvenile Aid Section and the department’s crime lab. Area I CID is responsible for the Hamakua, North Hilo, South Hilo and Puna Districts.
In addition, the county recognized Sgt. Brandon Konanui for being nominated as “Hawaii County Supervisor of the Year” and Sgt. Bryan Tina and Officer Kristi Crivello for being nominated as “Hawaii County Employee of the Year.”
Wagner was nominated by Maj. Randy Apele of the Area I Operations Bureau, who praised Wagner for providing ongoing training for current and future supervisors and for creating a Special Enforcement Unit to investigate burglaries, felony property crimes, robberies and other high-profile crimes.
“Captain Wagner has also displayed outstanding supervisory and management skills in planning, setting objectives, scheduling, organizing, delegating and controlling the work of the Criminal Investigation Division to lead to the positive resolutions in several high profile cases, including the arrest and charge of Peter Kema Sr. and his wife Jaylin for the murder of Peter Boy Kema,” Apele wrote. “Overall, CID cleared 16 murder and attempted murder cases during the 2015-16 fiscal year.”
Wagner, who took over the helm of CID in 2013 after a command stint in South Hilo Patrol Division, said the award is actually recognition for the work of his subordinates.
“It doesn’t seem like an award that belongs to me,” Wagner told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald Tuesday. “My job is to support those individuals who actually do the work, to give them the freedom to do what they do best. I think the accolades are for the work that was accomplished during that time by the CID, not necessarily me. It’s like the ‘Manager of the Year’ award in baseball. He never hit a home run. He never stole a base. He never pitched a no-hitter. It’s the men who are out in the field who are doing the job by making it happen.”
Taking the baseball analogy a step further, great managers coax the best performances out of their players, and Police Chief Harry Kubojiri described Wagner as “a great motivator of his personnel.”
“He’s one of those special people who leads by example,” Kubojiri said. “Over the years, he’s proven to consistently make sound decisions. And his personnel want to work for him and get the results. They’re dedicated to the mission he puts them on.
“Detective Derek Morimoto was nominated as the Officer of the Year for the Hawaii State Law Enforcement Officials Association earlier this year for his work for cold-case homicides … in part, due to the leadership of Captain Wagner. He publicly recognizes his people for good work. And this is a good management skill — if somebody needs to be talked to or admonished, he does it privately. He’s well respected.”
Kubojiri called the CID’s homicide clearance rate “phenomenal.” But the case of Peter “Peter Boy” Kema Jr., the chronically abused 6-year-old boy who went missing in 1997 and remained unsolved until his parents were indicted for his murder in April has drawn, by far, the most attention.
Jaylin Kema pleaded guilty Thursday to manslaughter for her failure to get medical attention for Peter Boy, who became the statewide poster child for missing and abused children. She has agreed to testify against her husband in his murder trial, which is expected to start in April 2017.
“The Peter Boy case is almost 20 years old. Who expected it to go anywhere?” Wagner said. “But part of the dynamics of the Peter Boy case is the cooperation we’ve gotten from the Prosecutor’s Office. They’re out for justice and they’re pushing ahead on cases that were declared dead years ago, re-opening them with new, fresh eyes and taking another look at them.”
Kubojiri also credited Wagner’s Special Enforcement Unit, which consists of a detective, a vice officer and an officer each from Hilo and Puna patrol divisions with “a lot of clearances in property crimes — burglaries, thefts, robberies.”
Wagner said he took the idea from a similar unit formed a number of years ago to combat juvenile crime in downtown Hilo.
“Over the years, you see specific problems and you put together units to address them, we call them CRUs sometimes, that’s crime reduction unit, or SEU. They’re usually temporary units. This one was put together because of burglaries in the Waiakea Houselots area and we use it to address property crimes,” he said.
Kubojiri said there are currently about 20 vacancies in the department’s allotment of 450 sworn officers to serve a geographic area of more than 4,000 square miles — more than three times the size of Rhode Island. He said Wagner has made the most of the limited number of personnel at his disposal.
“While 450 sworn officers sounds like a lot, the reality — with shift work, with vacations, extended leave, whether it be for the military or family leaves — we’re working with a less-than-desirable amount of officers, both in patrol and in plainclothes units,” he said. “He’s made up for the lack of manpower by being creative with personnel and giving them the guidance on what he wants accomplished. And he’s been getting phenomenal results. Through Captain Wagner’s leadership, they’re motivated to work hard for him.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
