He Was Banned From Police Work In California But Hired In Honolulu

San Francisco Police Department investigators had questions for one of their own. But Officer Riley Bandy didn’t want to talk.

A family had complained about how Bandy had handled a missing persons case. But for over four years, Bandy dodged the internal investigation, and he resigned rather than cooperate — surrendering his police certification in November 2024.

He can never work as a cop in California again.

But that wasn’t a problem for Bandy. A few months before, he had started a new job in Honolulu as an investigator for Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm.

Alm’s special counsel Christine Denton said the office didn’t know about Bandy’s alleged misconduct or the finding that he had failed to cooperate with the internal investigation until contacted by Civil Beat.

That outcome would have been considered if Bandy had disclosed it when he applied, she said. But the finding of serious misconduct didn’t become a matter of public record until April, and Bandy did not raise the matter of the active investigation when applying.

Denton said that all applicants for the investigator positions are asked “if there is anything that would prohibit them from fully performing the duties of a law enforcement officer,” and Bandy said there was not.

The fact that the investigation dragged on for several years meant it remained confidential long enough for Bandy to change jobs without having to disclose it.

The case illustrates the blind spots that persist in vetting law enforcement applicants in Hawaiʻi. Even during what Denton described as a “very thorough background check,” the office’s investigators did not have access to his personnel records and relied instead on references from three former supervisors including two from the San Francisco department. All of those were outstanding, she said.

In other states, candidates for police jobs are required to sign waivers allowing would-be employers to access personnel records. A planned police standards office in Hawaiʻi would have the power to require such waivers, but its official launch has been delayed until the middle of 2028.

Denton declined to comment on whether the misconduct finding from the investigation had any implications for Bandy’s employment.

But the finding might impact his ability to do his job because it could undermine his credibility as a prosecution witness if he’s required to testify.

While Alm’s investigators are rarely subpoenaed to appear in court, Honolulu defense attorney Christian Enright said that attorneys would be entitled to raise questions about an investigator’s background in court once details of past conduct were made public.

The office’s investigators function as armed law enforcement, Enright said, and should also be subject to defense motions asking the prosecution to turn over evidence that might favor the accused, known as Brady or Giglio information . Any history of racial bias or excessive force would be particularly relevant in a defense case, he said.

The office has had an issue with at least one of its investigators before, an employee who was investigated for obstructing his own domestic violence case .

Bandy did not respond to attempts to reach him by phone, email or mail, including written questions about the findings of the report.

In the investigative report, he denied wrongdoing.

“I always cooperated. I never did not,” Bandy eventually told investigators. But the report noted that Bandy had ended his employment before the investigation was completed, and never invoked any “constitutional, statutory, or other legally recognized right” under California law for not cooperating.

In November 2021, a Bay Area family contacted the San Francisco Police Department to report their adult daughter was missing. They were concerned because she had an intellectual disability and told police her behavior could be childlike.

Three days later, the family and the daughter spoke with Bandy to report she had returned home safely, but only after she’d escaped from an unknown person who had held her against her will.

Bandy wrote an incident report to close the file, but in his version the woman had gone to San Francisco to “party and do drugs” and had made the kidnapping story up so her parents wouldn’t know.

Five days later, the family filed a formal complaint with the Department of Police Accountability saying Bandy had been rude to them and failed to properly investigate the kidnapping allegation.

Investigators in September 2024 concluded that Bandy’s police work on the missing persons case had been unprofessional, lacked diligence and amounted to “Improper Conduct” but was not grounds for serious discipline.

More seriously, Bandy had failed to cooperate with the misconduct investigation for years, and that was sufficient grounds to suspend or revoke his California police certification.

But by the time that finding was made public on a state website this year, Bandy had long since surrendered his California certification and had been working as an investigator in Alm’s office for nearly two years, making between $72,500 and $103,000 .

The job involves performing and supervising investigations into “suspected or actual violations of civil, administrative and/or criminal laws, rules, regulations or other legal requirements,” according to the job description .

Any potential employer backgrounding Bandy would not have had access to the internal investigation because it was still active when he was applying for the Hawaiʻi job, according to Meagan Poulos of the California Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training .

California police personnel records remain largely confidential by default , although there are exceptions that went into effect in 2019. Those exceptions include audits or investigations by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, which certifies California peace officers and has the authority to suspend or decertify officers for serious misconduct.

Hawaiʻi still lacks a police certification process due to delays establishing the equivalent of the California office, and that likely made the transition easier for Bandy because his certification was not in conflict with his Honolulu job.

Poulos said the office could not comment on the case beyond what was in the published investigation, but confirmed that Bandy had voluntarily surrendered his California police certification in November 2024, an irrevocable step that means he can never work as a cop in the state again. Bandy is also on a national register of officers who have been decertified or had their license revoked because of misconduct, she said.

The final investigation report makes clear that the lengthy delays were in large part caused by Bandy’s lack of cooperation, including three no-shows at official interviews when he was under subpoena.

San Francisco police general orders — the department’s “most authoritative and permanent directives” — say that officers must cooperate fully and help the Department of Police Accountability investigate any complaints against them, and they “shall appear for scheduled interviews and be prepared to proceed.”

The internal investigation shows a dramatic turn in the career trajectory of an officer whose star was on the rise just a decade ago.

Bandy joined the department in January 2015, according to employment records obtained by nonprofit newsroom Invisible Institute .

Then in 2017, Bandy received the department’s highest award for bravery — the Gold Medal of Valor — for foiling an armed robbery in Oakland while he was off-duty and unarmed. He ran after an armed suspect who pointed an air rifle at him several times. Bandy later tackled the suspect and helped Oakland police arrest them.

Among those who recommended Bandy for the medal was his then-commander at SFPD’s Central Station, Captain David Lazar — now Honolulu’s police chief.

Lazar had no idea that Bandy was under investigation or had left San Francisco and ended up at the Prosecuting Attorney’s office, HPD’s communication director Claudette Springer said. Lazar was not asked for a professional reference when Bandy applied for the job with the prosecutor’s office, Springer said.

But at some point after receiving his award, Bandy’s career at the department started going off the rails.

The internal investigation report lists other instances of confirmed misconduct in Bandy’s work history starting in 2017, the year he was awarded the medal. Later that year he failed to turn up at the range for his firearm qualification. He was admonished and had to retrain in 2018.

Then in 2019, there were three instances of improper conduct that appear connected and took place in close proximity, including contacting a crime victim for personal reasons, inappropriate conduct and compromising an investigation.

The disciplinary outcome was a combined five-day suspension.

Other misconduct allegations, including that he showed racial bias when he detained a car burglary suspect in 2020 and used excessive force in 2021, were investigated and closed with no further action. An allegation of failing to activate a body-worn camera was never resolved.

Those details only came to light because of the San Francisco family who reported their daughter missing. Bandy’s prior disciplinary cases wouldn’t have been publicly available if they hadn’t been cited in the alleged kidnapping case and the final determination that he had failed to cooperate in his own internal investigation. The department posts reports on disciplinary cases, but the identity of the officer remains confidential.

Other states, including Illinois, require out-of-state law enforcement applicants to sign waivers authorizing the disclosure of their personnel files by their former employer. In Tennessee, police files can be accessed by request for professional or official purposes and redactions have to be justified in writing. States that have a working police standards board can also verify potential applicants through an interagency request.

The investigation came to a head in April and May of 2024 when Bandy failed to appear at three interviews scheduled with the DPA investigators.

His police union rep tried to postpone the first hearing on April 11 at the last minute. Bandy then failed to appear on April 25 because his union rep said he was on military leave.

He was subpoenaed a third time to appear on May 30, but just after 5 p.m. on May 29, the rep emailed investigators that Bandy had been injured on the job that day and needed to reschedule – the third time he had been a no-show.

That workplace fall was captured on surveillance video, written up by Bandy’s supervisor as “non-preventable” and resulted in two days’ leave authorized by a doctor.

But the investigators also said that another SFPD officer had written a report for his supervisor saying Bandy had told him he was planning to “go out” on an injury that day because he had already gotten a job in Hawai‘i and wanted to “double dip.”

That allegation was referred to the San Francisco District Attorney for possible prosecution but the DA said there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.

The part about having the job already in Hawaiʻi was true, however. He started work in Honolulu two months after his last scheduled interview.

The timeline of the investigation shows that Bandy resigned from the department on Nov. 12, 2024 –– just six days after he was served with an Internal Affairs interview notice about those disability fraud allegations. The department found there was insufficient evidence to support the allegation but for good measure it suspended all his certificates in January 2025.

When he finally did sit down with department investigators in a virtual meeting from Honolulu this January, Bandy told them he knew department general orders meant he had to cooperate with investigations but gave a slew of reasons for failing to appear, including missing their emails and blaming his union representative, according to the investigation report.

Although only briefly mentioned in the final report, Bandy served a period of unspecified military deployment and by his account had difficulty reintegrating into his job and home on his return.

He told investigators that he had been on family and medical leave for much of 2024, which was the reason he had failed to appear for the interviews in April and May. But they said his official work schedule didn’t line up with that account, and his July 2024 start date at Alm’s office also contradicts his excuse.

This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.