BSI, DPS to revive bike patrol program in Garapan

Best Sunshine International, Ltd. is working closely with the Commonwealth Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Public Safety to revamp the Tourism Oriented Policing Section, a bike patrol policing program credited with reduced crime rate in the Garapan area at the height of its operation.

Launched in early 2000 with the support of Duty Free Saipan, Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Marianas Visitors Authority, the decline of the TOPS operation was due to the inevitable wear and tear of the bikes and lack of funding for maintenance and procurement of new ones. It was reestablished around 2013 when the DPS commissioner assigned a facility in Lower MIHA to function as their main office, but still due to its limited financial backing, some bike patrol officers had to purchase their own bikes and equipment for patrol use.

Furthermore, the activity of the police bike patrol program was hampered due to the damage caused by Typhoon Soudelor to the container used for the bikes’ storage. The 20-foot container flipped over from the wind’s brutal force, resulting in the bikes being mangled and damaged, rendering most of them nonfunctional.

“During the storm, we secured all our equipment in the container; and when it flipped over, it damaged all that was in it. The heavy shelving fell on the bikes,” said CBI detective Jesse Dubrall. “Components of the bikes are quite sensitive. The impact bent all the frames and broke all the components, pretty much damaging all the personal and police-issued bikes.”

A consolidated effort between DPS, CBI, and Best Sunshine led by DPS Commissioner James Deleon Guerrero, CBI commander Jeff Olopai, and BSI director for corporate social responsibility Rita Chong is underway to revive the flagging bike patrol program whose primary goal, according to DPS detective Flora Aguon, “is to prevent crime and to make the public feel secure in a safe environment, particularly the tourists. We want to make sure that tourists in particular are protected so that they don’t go back home and say that Saipan is a dangerous place.”

“The tourists really enjoy the bikes and UTVs. They take pictures of it and sometimes get on it because they don’t have this type of police program back where they’re from, and they enjoy the novelty of it,” added Dubrall.

Chong said: “Visibility of patrol officers on bikes and UTVs will deter crime in the Garapan district and will be a model for succeeding programs in all the other villages throughout Saipan. Not only is TOPS successful in its mobility and access, this policing program makes DPS approachable and friendly.”

“We would like to reach out to other organizations and corporate partners to donate and help out the Department of Public Safety’s TOPS patrol program in reviving this policing service that has such an outstanding impact in crime prevention,” Chong added.

Chong can be contacted through BSI Corporate Social Responsibility office at telephone number 588-6609. (BSI)