DPS chief: Issues surrounding evidence facility now resolved

The Department of Public Safety has already addressed the negative issues, including mishandling of evidence, at its evidence facility, according to DPS Commissioner James C. Deleon Guerrero.

He said DPS has been working extensively with the Office of the Public Auditor and the Office of the Attorney General to resolve the matter.

“We have been very diligent in terms of addressing the concerns or findings that have been brought on by the OPA,” he said.

For the most part, a lot of the negative issues that resulted in the dismissal of some criminal cases have been addressed, he said.

In October 2013, then-attorney general Joey P. San Nicolas disclosed that the AG’s Investigation Unit and DPS were jointly looking into the mishandling of evidence in a trafficking of methamphetamine or “ice” case.

A bag that contained “ice” was substituted with a fake substance, leading to the dismissal of the charges in October 2013 against suspected “ice” suppliers Le Xiang Chen and Yuhua Wang.

In dismissing the case, Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho urged San Nicolas and Deleon Guerrero to look into this incident.

Deleon Guerrero disclosed yesterday that they have updated all of the inventories at the evidence facility and disposed of items that needed to be removed from the facility through the OAG.

He said the evidence facility “is now pretty much up to par at this point” in terms of integrity.

A couple of weeks ago, Deleon Guerrero visited the Guam Police Department and looked at their evidence facility as well as their crime lab.

One of the issues discussed in his visit was the possibility for GPD to send one of their personnel to Saipan to provide training for the evidence custodian as well as crime scene investigators.

“I’m pleased to say that they were quite receptive and accommodating to our request,” he said.

Deleon Guerrero said one of two steps that they are looking at right now is to send for some GPD personnel to Saipan to provide this training for crime scene investigators.

He said DPS will also be sending a team of crime scene investigators to GPD to be placed in an on-the-job training program.

The DPS legal counsel had already drafted a disposal policy with respect to evidence. The draft policy is now being circulated to DPS administration and the chief prosecutor for review.

“I’m hopeful that over the next 90 days or so, we should be able to resolve all of the pending issues with respect to policy at the evidence facility here in DPS,” he said.

He believes that DPS has pretty much cleared the “mess” at the evidence facility.