{"id":355047,"date":"2021-11-02T06:05:50","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T20:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=355047"},"modified":"2021-11-02T06:05:50","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T20:05:50","slug":"rep-camacho-accused-of-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/rep-camacho-accused-of-assault\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Camacho accused of assault"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Vicente Camacho<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Department of Public Safety is looking into a complaint filed by a man alleging that Rep. Vicente Camacho (D-Saipan) was one of three men who assaulted him on the evening of Friday, Oct. 29.<\/p>\n

When asked about the complaint filed by Steve Koch against Camacho, Department of Public Safety spokesperson Dre Pangelinan said that DPS is currently investigating the allegation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not have any details on this case, but we do have officers looking into the case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Saipan Tribune was told that an arrest warrant was issued late evening yesterday, but this could not be immediately confirmed as of 6pm press time, despite multiple attempts to confirm this with DPS.<\/p>\n

According to a source who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity as the case is still under investigation, Koch, a 59-year-old man who works as the Commonwealth Ports Authority\u2019s master electrician, and his daughter were out on a walk near their residence in China Town around 11pm last Friday when they were allegedly attacked by Camacho and two other men.<\/p>\n

Camacho denied this though. When asked about the matter last night, he denied assaulting Koch, saying the incident was the other way around and that he and his two sons were assaulted by Koch and they did jump on Koch but in order to subdue him.<\/p>\n

In the source\u2019s version of the story, he claims that the two men, led by Camacho, allegedly jumped Koch from behind and started pounding the victim on the head. The victim\u2019s daughter, who reportedly witnessed the event, allegedly called out to Camacho who she referred to as \u201cuncle,\u201d telling him to get off her father. That\u2019s when the Precinct 3 lawmaker and the other two men reportedly walked away.<\/p>\n

It was learned that Koch, a cancer survivor, could not fight back as he was trying to protect the bladder bag attached to him so it would not be detached from his body during the incident.<\/p>\n

Koch allegedly called the police to report the incident that same evening immediately after the beating and on Saturday, DPS detectives met him at his home to conduct and investigation.<\/p>\n

In Camacho\u2019s version of the story, he claims that he was in the area because he was picking his son up from his cousin who is also the child\u2019s babysitter. Soon after, as he and his son were on the way to their car, he said they were confronted by Koch who had what seemed to be a whip with something sharp attached to it.<\/p>\n

Camacho accused Koch of swinging the whip at his son, cutting his son, and he said did what he needed to do to defend his son.<\/p>\n

It is believed that there was an altercation between Koch and Camacho\u2019s cousin, who is also Koch\u2019s brother-in-law, on the night of the incident.<\/p>\n

He claims and he and his sons did not want to hurt Koch, and that they just wanted to subdue him until the police arrived.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just happened. We didn\u2019t try to hurt him. I can\u2019t do that. It was an unfortunate incident that I did not initiate. I did not assault him,\u201d the lawmaker said.<\/p>\n

Camacho added that he called the police after the incident but did not file a complaint but he said he intends to do so now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Public Safety is looking into a complaint filed by a man alleging…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":355066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-355047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355047","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=355047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}