New Maui police statement reveals violations of provincial protocol in recovery of fire victims in Lahaina

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – After weeks of questions from HNN Investigates, the Maui Police Department recently provided information showing the department did not always follow county protocols in recovering the remains of people who died in the Lahaina fire .

However, the department maintains that the information it has provided to families is accurate.

This comes after MPD’s former mortuary contractor told HNN Investigates process was so poorly managed he cannot guarantee that all the ash families they receive are their loved ones.

Maui police confirmed that identification numbers — used to keep track of who’s who — were only issued after the victims had been moved at least twice.

Department leadership also admits that scene photos and GPS coordinates were not obtained in all cases. They also acknowledge instances where body bags were not used to remove the deceased from their final resting place.

Since October 3, HNN Investigates has been asking whether officers tasked with recovering the remains of Lahaina fire victims followed proper protocols and procedures in accordance with Maui County’s Mass Fatality Operation Plan.

In a statement, a Maui Police spokesperson responded: “We have leveraged best practices from our federal partners who have worked with us, particularly the FEMA USAR teams.”

The statement continued, “We were also privileged to have the Department of Defense DOD team.”

According to MPD’s preliminary after-action report, FEMA’s Urban Search and Recovery teams did not arrive on the island until late in the afternoon of August 11, 2023 – three days after the fire. By then, the vast majority of the 102 recoveries had already been made by MPD.

The same report states that approximately “90 recoveries occurred in the first three days.”

Meanwhile, records show the DOD team didn’t arrive until “mid-August.”

The The former department mortuary contractor told HNN Investigates about the alleged missteps took place in the three days before Maui’s federal partners arrived.

Greyson Abarra is the owner and director of operations for the mortuary at Gray Tech LLC. For more than a decade, his company was contracted to provide post-mortem services to the Maui Police Department. The day after the fire, MPD leadership called Abarra to action.

He says when he arrived at the Lahaina Civic Center on the morning of August 9, 2023, he was led to a truck with the remains of six people in the back.

“The bodies were not in post-mortem bags (body bags),” he said.

Abarra further said, “we had to put them in proper post-mortem bags.”

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While the department has not confirmed the numbers, it admits that officers did not always use body bags during the earliest phase of the recovery process. They say that “disaster bags were not yet available in sufficient quantity in Lahaina” and that “the first bodies discovered had already been found.” be moved from the area” to protect the remains from exposure and from intruders entering the fire zone.

Abarra says many of the recovery processes and procedures that are crucial for accurately documenting the location of a person’s death and keeping remains separate so they are not lost or confused with other remains have not been followed.

In addition to police officers, MPD now confirms that officer recruits still in training were assigned to do the work – tasks that would normally be reserved for experienced recovery teams like Gray Tech and anthropologists.

Abarra said, “A lot of that after-action report points to a lot of leadership and unified command, but that wasn’t there until much later.”

The province’s Mass Fatality Operations Plan required each person killed to be assigned a unique ID number at the time of discovery; have photos and GPS coordinates taken at the location where they were found; and their remains were placed in a post-mortem bag for transport to the mortuary for autopsy.

Abarra said: “None of this information was available in advance – prior to the recovery and assessment of these cases – making it all extremely difficult to untangle.”

Another major problem: Abarra said the deceased had not been given a unique mortuary ID number at the location where their remains were discovered.

He says unique identification is critical, especially in events with large numbers of victims, because it allows accurate tracking and identification of victims so that remains can be reunited with the right family.

Records show fire victims were moved at least twice before being assigned that ID number. First, they were transported from the place where they were found to a central collection point. From there they were taken to a forensic clinic.

“I had to assign these unique ID numbers while doing imaging with the hospital,” Abarra said.

MPD confirmed Abarra’s claim, telling HNN Investigates that fire victims were not given a case number until X-rays were taken.

Abarra says there were cases where scene photos were never obtained, adding photos that weren’t always helpful.

He also said that GPS coordinates have not been recorded for every victim.

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When officers started using post-mortem bags, he said he found addresses or cross streets on some of the bag instead of specific coordinates.

In an interview obtained as part of the The Attorney General’s Wildfire Investigationan MPD detective described how the recovery process unfolded in the days immediately following the fire.

“I don’t know if I told it on the station, or if I said it on the radio, but it came out and basically said, ‘Hey, if you guys find anything, call the location, the time, or don’t you thinks it’s male or female on the radio. So we can have a report of that on the radio,” said Det. Matt Bigoss.

“Then I had said to the guys that were with me, ‘Hey, we’re going to put them in – you know, recovery, body, remains, whatever, find it, put it in the bag. Write something on the outside of the bag to indicate the date, the time, the location.” Because at this point we came to the conclusion: we actually had to restore them. And take them to a central location so that the mortuary people can pick them up more easily.’

That detective went on to say, “I mean, there were definitely a few that were missed. But for the most part, the guys were pretty good at taking photos. And document. And take notes about what they saw.”

Abarra said: ‘The post-mortem rooms had a lot of moisture and condensation. And also provided another challenge. If you don’t use something permanent, the markings on these bags can be lost.”

Abarra provided photos showing examples of information written on some body bags that was difficult to read because it was smeared or wiped off.

These are some of the issues MPD highlighted in its preliminary after-action report.

“Recommendation 20” was to “continue death investigation education for MPD officers as some of the initial documentation and photography could have provided more context with better reporting and detail.”

Abarra says he immediately spoke up and pointed out the problems to department leadership. He says he even gave them a copy of Maui County’s Mass Fatality Operations Plan – a step-by-step guide on what needs to be done.

When asked about the province’s response, he said: “I don’t think the problem was understood.”

Abarra says he doesn’t blame the officers and recruits for what happened, saying they only did what they were told.

“You should never have been put in that situation,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to go through this.”

MPD has acknowledged that there was confusion. The preliminary after-action report states: “It was discovered early on that some body bags contained commingled remains. In other cases, one person may have been found in more than one body bag.”

The report further said: “A subset of fragmented bone remains could not be linked to just one individual and was intermingled with multiple unrelated individuals and was labeled as group remains.”

At the time the report was written, the remains were being held in the morgue until the department could figure out what to do with them.

We asked MPD leadership where they stand today. We were told the remains are still in the care of the department and are undergoing ongoing laboratory analysis.

Below is MPD’s full statement sent to HNN Investigates:

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