Best Sunshine partners with DPS to revive Tourism Oriented Policing Section
Marianas Variety, 23 Nov 2015
Photo: Detective Flora Aguon routinely patrols downtown Garapan as part of the Department of Public Safety’s Tourism Oriented Policing Section Program.
(Press Release) — Best Sunshine International is working closely with the Commonwealth Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Public Safety in revamping the Tourism Oriented Policing Section or TOPS, a bike patrol policing program credited with reduced crime rate in the Garapan area.
TOPS was launched in early 2000 with the support of DFS, HANMI and MVA, but was discontinued due to lack of funding.
In 2013, it was reestablished with an office in lower MIHA, but with limited financial backing, some bike patrol officers had to purchase their own bikes and equipment for patrol use.
The program was also hampered when Typhoon Soudelor damaged the container used as storage for the bikes and the bikes themselves.
Detective Jesse Dubrall said: “During the storm, we secured all our equipment in the container but when it flipped over, it damaged all that was in it. The heavy shelves fell on the bikes. 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.”
Now DPS, with the help of Best Sunshine, is reviving the bike patrol program whose primary goal, according to Detective Flora Aguon, “is to prevent crime and to make the public feel secure in a safe environment. 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.”
Dubrall added, “The tourists really enjoy the bikes and the Utility Terrain Vehicle — they take pictures of them and sometimes get on the UTV because they don’t have this type of police program back where they’re from.”
Best Sunshine director for corporate social responsibility Rita 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.”
She added, “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, which has such an outstanding impact on crime prevention.”