Creation of more law enforcement agencies opposed

The Saipan Chamber of Commerce has opposed a proposed measure that will establish independent law enforcement agencies for the Commonwealth Ports Authority, Immigration Enforcement Division of the Department of Labor and Immigration, the Office of Adult Probation and Parole Office of the Board of Parole.

HB 12-64 would designate these officers as “law enforcement” officers for the purpose of carrying firearms. “While we are not questioning the rights of people in this community to bear arms, we wish to re-emphasize our sense that we live in a relatively safe community because gun possession is limited. The proliferation of weapons in any community creates opportunities to use deadly force that do not exist now,” said Chamber president Lynn Knight.

While the Chamber does not oppose the grant of death benefits to ports authority and customs officers which the bill will provide, the business group finds it unnecessary to designate these offices as law enforcement agencies.

The officers working in these agencies already possess powers of arrest which includes all the officers HB 12-64 seeks to address. However, they gain no additional powers to enforce criminal violations under the bill. In general, Ms. Knight said the Chamber is opposed to proliferation of “law enforcement agencies.”

Since the Department of Public Safety has been established as the primary law enforcement agency, the Chamber sees no reason to create additional police departments — especially without centralized coordination of standards, policies, procedures, training and supervision.

“If our Department of Public Safety is under-manned and cannot adequately enforce our laws, the solution is to overlapping responsibilities is a recipe for waste, inefficiency and poor Commonwealth-wide policy coordination. We should rely on our Department of Public Safety and not create new police departments,” Ms. Knight said in a letter to Senate President Paul A. Manglona.

The Chamber believes that no government official other than the officers of DPS should be armed unless it can be shown through evidence that a need exists to counter a threat of deadly force.

According to Ms. Knight, the policy of strictly limiting the legal authority to possess firearms must not be changed without strong and specific evidence.

The Chamber has expressed concern on the welfare of employees who may face the threat of deadly force for violation of immigration laws. Ms. Knight stressed that community safety is not threatened when an alien takes an unauthorized job or stays in the Commonwealth beyond the time limit of their entry permit.

“The vast majority of the aliens here who may be threatened by this bill are women. The threat of a gun pushed into the face of women is offensive beyond words. Women should never be threatened with death — even the remotest possibility of death — for running from immigration officers.” Ms. Knight said.

Currently, immigration officers have discretion under the statutory scheme to use virtually unlimited range of non-deadly means of apprehending aliens and enforcing immigration laws.

While there should be police available at or near the ports in the event of crimes being committed, ports authority officers are more likely to be enforcing parking regulations.

Parole Officers and Probation Officers are in the business of rehabilitation of sentenced offenders and reintegrating them back into our community. It is not apparent that probationers or parolees have in fact threatened anyone with deadly force.

“If in fact such a threat can be demonstrated, the Chamber would rather see changes made in the policies guiding the release and supervision of parolees and probationers than changes made in our fundamental community-wide weapons policies,” Ms. Knight said.

“We are concerned that putting guns in the hands of more people in the Commonwealth by virtue of their government jobs will threaten the unauthorized use of deadly force against neighbors, spouses, companions, children and the suicide-prone,” Ms. Knight said. (LFR)