When police can use force and must stop or report it

(a) In all cases where the person arrested refuses to submit or attempts to escape, a degree of force may be used by a law enforcement officer as is necessary to compel the person to submission. (b) A law enforcement officer who reasonably believes that another law enforcement officer is using unnecessary or excessive force on an arrestee that violates an applicable law or departmental policy shall have a duty to: (1) Immediately intervene to prevent the use of unnecessary or excessive force by the other law enforcement officer; provided that the intervention can be safely accomplished; and (2) Report the incident to the other law enforcement officer's supervisor as soon as practicable. (c) Each relevant department director and county police department chief shall submit an annual report of incidents reported pursuant to subsection (b) to the legislature no later than January 31 of each year. The reporting period of each report shall be from January 1 to December 31 of the year immediately before the year of the report submission. The annual report shall: (1) Summarize the facts and the nature of each reported incident; and (2) Specify the disciplinary action, if any, that was imposed in connection with a reported incident. (d) As used in this section, "law enforcement officer" means any public servant, whether employed by the State or county, vested by law with a duty to maintain public order or to make arrests for offenses or to enforce the criminal laws, whether that duty extends to all offenses or is limited to a specific class of offenses. [PC 1869, c 49, §7; RL 1925, §3973; RL 1935, §5406; RL 1945, §10707; RL 1955, §255-7; HRS §708-7; ren L 1972, c 9, pt of §1; gen ch 1985; am L 2023, c 55, §2]