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4 cops are grounded—Norita
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Posted on Mar 20 2008
Four police officers were grounded effective yesterday due to various issues, according to Department of Public Safety Commissioner Claudio K. Norita.
Norita disclosed that these police officers were involved in traffic accidents, alleged non-payment of bar bills, and so forth.
Being grounded means that these officers are assigned to non-sensitive assignments such as dispatchers or administrative work, he said.
Norita said the grounded officers are prohibited from working overtime while the DPS Internal Affairs’ investigations are still pending.
“Although these happened before I came in [at DPS] we are catching some of these discrepancies in the way things are being administered internally,” said the official, who recently replaced former commissioner Rebecca Warfield.
Norita said that, in the past, there were a lot of incidents where supervisors made their own decisions with respect to officers committing offenses. As a result, there were discrepancies in the way the cases were adjudicated.
“That’s why we are streamlining the process where Internal Affairs takes the lead and there are guidelines on how we serve the punishment. It’s written guidelines that we have, the adverse action,” he said.
The commissioner disclosed that one of the grounded officers is Norbert Mettao, who was arrested, booked, and released for alleged disturbing the peace and non-payment of bills at Corner Pocket in Garapan.
Norita said that if the Attorney General’s Office charge Mettao, then DPS will suspend him.
“If the AGO doesn’t want to charge him, we will deal with him administratively,” he explained.
