The Department of Public Safety\u2019s evidence room that was destroyed back in 2015 as a result of the onslaught of Super Typhoon Soudelor has not seen any improvement in the past three years. <\/p>\n
The Office of the Public Auditor will be inspecting DPS\u2019 evidence room in June and, according to DPS Commissioner Robert Guerrero, there has been nothing done in terms of its recovery. <\/p>\n
The last inspection was done back in 2015. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor the last three years, it\u2019s the same findings it\u2019s always been. Nothing has been done since Soudelor,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Guerrero said that he has already voiced his frustrations about the matter and has even brought up the issue with higher-ups but nothing has been done. With Guerrero as the DPS chief, that effectively means the Office of the Governor.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil that gets fixed, I will continue to bring it up,\u201d Guerrero said. <\/p>\n
Aside from the evidence room, Guerrero said that OPA also cited five other issues with DPS but they have all been resolved. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe resolved all the OPA findings. Out of five or six that were found, we resolved all of it except for that one [the evidence room] and if we don\u2019t get that building fixed, that problem will remain as a finding,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Guerrero said that funding is not the issue because it should be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the responsibility to rebuild the facility lies with the Office of the Governor. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe [it\u2019s a funding issues]. It was destroyed by Soudelor so that\u2019s a FEMA issue and, from my understanding, the money is there. Unfortunately, we don\u2019t take care of the procurement or services or materials to fix the building so that\u2019s where the problem exist. The authority to act on that is under the Governor\u2019s Office directly,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Currently, the DPS fitness room has been serving as the temporary DPS evidence room. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need that [evidence room]. Right now, the facility that\u2019s being occupied as an evidence room [is] actually the physical fitness facility for our officers and their families,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Department of Public Safety\u2019s evidence room that was destroyed back in 2015 as a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-298070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-dps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}