HONOLULU -- One of the Honolulu Police Department officers arrested in Las Vegas on drug charges over the weekend has been in trouble at HPD before, sources said.

Sources told KITV the officer has been accused of wrongdoing several times and was even fired, but got his job back.

Every year, a couple of officers who've been terminated by the police department successfully appeal their firings and are reinstated. That is what happened to Shayne Souza, according to sources familiar with his case.

Souza has spent 20 years at the police department and sources said he was disciplined for brandishing his police gun in a road rage incident.

Sources also told KITV that HPD terminated Souza several years ago after he was accused of tipping off drug dealers about a potential police raid. Souza appealed his firing. An arbitrator ruled in his favor, because certain procedures were not followed, so he was reinstated as a police officer with back pay, sources said.

The mayor reacted to the case that has Souza in trouble again, this time for a drug charge in Las Vegas.

"Unfortunately, every once in a while we have these type of incidents, and we're going to deal with it and we're going to move on, and we're going to enforce strict disciplinary action, no question about it," Mayor Mufi Hannemann said.

Souza is the son of longtime police Maj. Louis Souza, who headed the criminal investigation division and was also HPD's legislative liaison.

When the younger Souza was reinstated to his job, he had to work in the patrol division for two years, before he successfully applied to be reassigned to his old unit, the Specialized Services Division, also known as SWAT, sources said. In the Las Vegas incident, police said fellow officer Kevin Fujioka and Souza fled from officers in their rented van and there was a "short pursuit." Fujioka was charged with driving under the influence of a narcotic.

In the last couple years, Fujioka spent six months training HPD recruits how to drive police cars and how to handle high-speed chases, sources said.

"I also want to make clear too that this in no way should taint the rest of the police department. The majority of them are law-abiding, hard-working, excellent role models. We have one of the finest police departments in the nation," Hannemann said.

Neither of the accused officers has returned to work.

An HPD spokeswoman said by law, the department cannot release disciplinary records unless they resulted in an officer being discharged.