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Maui Police Department promotes six officers to sergeant

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The Maui News

Six Maui Police Department officers have been promoted to the rank of sergeant, MPD announced Wednesday.

All promotions will take effect April 2 for:

• Chase Bell, who joined the department in 2014 as a police officer I in the Kihei Patrol District, followed by a year in the Hana Patrol District, according to MPD. From 2017 to 2019, he served in the Wailuku Patrol District until transferring to his most recent assignment in the Vice Narcotics Division. Bell has also served as a member of the Special Response Team since 2019.

• James Burkett, who joined the department in 2011 as a police officer I in the Lahaina Patrol District, followed by a transfer to Wailuku. In 2017, he transferred to the Traffic Division Solo Bike Detail, where he served as a member of the SPEED Team. In 2021, he was assigned to Hana.

Burkett previously served as a police officer in Texas, a police adviser for the U.S. Department of State and a base commander in Iraq before he moved to Maui in 2010. He and his wife, Crista, have 3-year-old twin daughters.

• Carl Eguia, who joined MPD in 2005 as a police officer I in Lahaina before being transferred to the Lanai Patrol District. Upon returning to Maui, he worked in Kihei as a field training officer. In 2012, Eguia was assigned to the Traffic Division OUI Task Force, where he served for three years before transferring back to Lanai. In 2022, he began serving as the school resource officer at Lanai High and Elementary School.

Eguia and his wife, Ciera, have one daughter, Pi'ilani.

• Jonathan Honda, who joined the department in 2011 as a police officer I in Wailuku before moving to the Molokai Patrol District. In 2016, Honda transferred into the Juvenile Crime Prevention Division as a school resource officer for Maui Waena Intermediate School until 2018, when he became the school resource officer for Maui High.

Honda spent seven years as a tactical operator on the Special Response Team. He serves as a member of the Maui Coalition for Drug-Free Youth and volunteers for Special Olympics Hawai'i as well as the Maui Police Activities League.

• Frank Kuamoo II, who joined the department in 1992 as a police officer I in Wailuku before being assigned to Molokai in 1994. He returned the next year to Wailuku, where he served for three years before transferring to the Crime Reduction Unit.

After leaving the department in 2000, he returned in 2011 as a police officer I in Kihei, where he also served as a field training officer. His most recent assignment since 2018 has been as the Wailuku parking and traffic enforcement officer. Kuamoo also assists in training police recruits as an arrest and defense tactics and traffic control instructor.

He and his wife, Sonya, have six children and one grandchild.

• Randy Takayama, who joined the department in 2008 as a police officer I in Wailuku, where he's remained throughout his career. He received a certificate of merit in 2013 for his actions while on patrol and has served as a field training officer. Takayama is also a member of the Crisis Intervention Team.

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