by Jolene Toves

Guam - In the event of an emergency first responders must be ready on a moment's notice. The Guam Police Department's Civilian Police Reserve Unit and CAPE officers were put to that test.

In a test of readiness GPD recently activated its civilian police reserve unit and CAPE officers. GPD Chief Fred Bordallo said, "I assembled the and talked to them about their role because of the state of high alert with the embassies worldwide and the transnational terrorist threats that might be emerging in any area of the world from the Middle East to Southeast Asia we always have to be alert."

As CVPR's the unit assists full time GPD officers with different operations and may even be activated in an emergency. According to Chief Bordallo the activation was a no notice exercise involving the tactical operations and all the precincts. So how did they do?

He said, "We started at 7pm the assembly area was at the Dededo Precinct and cut off time for 9pm for everyone to sign in to say that they came in was at 9pm. I'm going to say more work needs to be done."

Out of 102 sworn civilian police reserve officers 47 reserves reported, Bordallo attributes this to a number of them being deployed, and some that were unable to break away from work. According to GPD, the response was about 50%. "But at least it was good enough I think with 47 some civilian police reserves that's enough to actually man two precincts right now," he said.

Bordallo says he would like to see that number increase. While it was a test of their readiness Bordallo says future exercises will also be focusing on whether the CVPR can respond to a scenario.