DPS eyes park and beach surveillance

After the recent homicide case involving the Cabrera brothers, Department of Public Safety Commissioner Anthony Macaranas shared to media partners that surveillance in parks and beaches, especially in the tourist district was something the department was seeking to do.

“Right now, I’m in talks with the Marianas Visitors Bureau about setting up cameras that were recently donated by Docomo Pacificm” said Macaranas during a press conference last Monday. “We’re gonna set that thing up so that we can add more security to our people. Not only for the tourists, but also for our people.”

Macaranas said the plan was to install these cameras first in the more isolated tourist spots, and then toward more community places.

“Well, these cameras are mostly [to be] concentrated within Garapan, where the tourist district is at. But in the future, I’ll extend it more north to tourist areas like Marpi, diving spots like Lau Lau, the areas that people may not usually be present. We’ll put those cameras there, not only Lau Lau but also Ladder Beach, Obyan Beach so we can add a little bit of security to the people there.”

When asked about updates on current investigations from this year, Macaranas shared that the newer set of bones found among three sets of skeletal remains in a Banzai Cliff cave at Marpi has been determined by resident anthropologists as an Asian male.

“They are still sifting through the area where the bones were found because they need more bones in order for anthropologist to figure out the age. Because we know already that it’s an Asian male, but as far as the age we need more bones for anthropologists to figure out the age of the human remains.”

He shared that what they know right now is based off of the bones that they have already, but they do need more to not only determine the age but possibly the cause of death.

As for the homicide case that claimed the lives of a couple from Finasisu last January, Macaranas said that they are still awaiting the results from the lab in the U.S. mainland.

“We’re still waiting for the results of the evidence that we send out for examination by forensics. So as soon as we get those results back, we will go from there. I want to let the people know that the processing of evidence, not just this, any kind of evidence, it would take months, probably to a year, depending on how extensive the examination will go to. And that’s one of the reasons why there’s a long timeline waiting for that to go through.”

He shared that in the meantime, the investigation still continues in order to build up evidence for when results do return from the lab in the U.S. mainland.