Police chief ensures community that GPD is doing the best they can

There's still no word on when the Committee on Public Safety will reschedule its oversight hearing with the Guam Police Department. It was called off the day it was supposed to be held two weeks ago. KUAM however got answers to questions that were supposed to be posed to the top brass of GPD, such as updates on what they're doing to fight drugs, the rape of a 14-year-old girl in Dededo, and shooting that occurred along the back road to Andersen.

Police Chief Steve Ignacio wants to assure the community that GPD is doing the best they can, as he said, "I am a member of the community just like everybody else."

But unlike everyone else the Chief is in charge of Guam's men and women in blue tasked with ensuring the island is safe and criminals are being caught. From Yigo to Umatac crimes are being committed on a daily basis and victims are still waiting for answers. For example there's been no arrest for a shooting that took place on the back road to Andersen. In November a woman was driving along Route 15 when another car drove by and shot her in the face.

"We've come to a point where we believe it was a random act of violence and we are probably looking at a drive by shooting to say the least," he said. "We don't have any other leads at this point to pursue it so we continue to ask the public if they have whatever little information they have if they know anything about it please come forward."

Also in November 2019 there was the case involving a 13-year-old girl walking in Dededo grabbed by a man and raped in the jungle. No arrests in this case either.

"As we speak, we've also been in coordination doing some coordinating work with the FSM police because there was information an individual may have fled so we are working with them to conduct an interview of the person of interest along with other people that may have been involved with that case," said the chief.

In response to an inquiry from KUAM for an update on the investigation of a July burglary of a Tamuning home Police spokesperson Paul Tapao said all cases with the Criminal Investigation Division have been placed on hold because detectives were concentrating their efforts on the homicide investigation in Mangilao. Juan Aguon was shot dead outside his home on December 11th but one month later and there's been no arrest.

"No, we actively investigate as many cases as we can given the limited resources we have in criminal investigation," he said.

KUAM asked if there was a shortage of detectives in CID, to which he replied, "I don't know the number of detectives right now offhand, but I do know that we are short there I talked about this recently. During my time when I was a criminal investigator we had twenty four people just in criminal investigation that did not include the other components of the division itself."

The chief meanwhile says that in line with the governor's Safer Guam initiative they are working to bring more police officers on board.

As for GPD efforts to investigate drug trafficking on Guam, Ignacio says that although the Mandana Drug Task force does not exist in name, it does exist in terms of it now being under GPD's Special Investigation Section.

Meantime, still no word on when GPD will be appearing before the public safety committee for their oversight hearing.