Honolulu police commissioners voted 5-2 on Wednesday to appoint David Lazar, a retired deputy chief from San Francisco, as the 13th chief of the Honolulu Police Department. He will be the first officer in the department’s 94-year history to lead HPD without having worked in Hawaii.
The decision ends months of interviews and community input, and puts Lazar on a path that still includes an FBI background check and contract talks with the city. If confirmed through that process, he will take charge of more than $350 million in annual spending and more than 2,000 officers and civilian personnel.
Commission Chair Laurie Foster said the search was “inclusive,” “thorough” and “professional,” and said the commissioners tried to make it as transparent as possible. She said the goal was modernization and transformation, and that all three finalists could have run the department effectively, but the board had to choose one.
The selection came after commissioners spent 90 minutes interviewing each candidate on Tuesday, following a broader process that also included Mayor Rick Blangiardi and panels made up of community members, business leaders, federal and state law enforcement officials and county first responder agencies. Among the finalists, Mike Lambert finished second and received votes from two commissioners, while Scott Ebner did not get a vote.
Lambert’s supporters had gone into the final round with momentum. He had endorsements from Gov. Josh Green, Blangiardi and the police officers’ union, and the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers said nearly 90% of respondents wanted him to lead. He was also the only finalist who rose through HPD’s ranks. But the commission chose a different path, and Lambert said the board had its own standards.
“I do know that they do think independently and they have their own ways of judging,” Lambert said after the vote. He added that he was a little concerned and hurt that some officers felt their views were not acknowledged, though he said he was not shocked by the outcome.
Lambert also said he had mixed feelings about losing out to a chief from outside the islands. “I haven’t gone to some of the national schools, the two- or three-week management schools, and I was slightly offended by that because for the things that I’ve done for this community, there’s no school for it,” he said, later adding, “There’s no school on how to eradicate illegal game rooms here in Honolulu.”
The choice marks a sharp break from HPD’s long pattern of homegrown leadership. The commission said its last outside chief served in 1932, and until Wednesday the department had never been led by someone who did not first work in Hawaii. Foster said the commissioners were looking for change, and that the community now has a role in helping the new chief succeed.
Lambert, meanwhile, said he was ready to move on. Asked whether he would want Lazar to name him deputy chief, he said no, because he did not believe it would be fair to either of them while he was still getting to know the new chief. He said he was ready to return to patrol if needed. “I’m ready. You know, I’m ready,” he said. “I’m a little bit of a showboat. I want to do well.”
The next step is the FBI review and negotiations with the city, which will determine how quickly Lazar can take command of a department that has been led by Interim Chief Rade Vanic since June 18, 2022. For Honolulu, the vote was not just about filling a vacancy. It was a choice to hand the city’s top police job to an outsider and test whether transformation can come from beyond HPD’s own walls.
