Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Commissioner of the Department Public Safety (DPS) Le’i Sonny Thompson told members of the House Public Safety committee during a hearing last week that DPS will hold a new Police Academy (PA) to train the police recruits hired to become certified police officers.

Le’i said that out of 251 applicants who sat the most recent entrance exam, only 6 of them passed and 5 of them were females.

The new Police Academy, according to Le’i, is scheduled to start on Aug. 2nd, 2020. The plan is to train more police officers to bring the total number of officers to 200, which is the number of police officers needed to serve a community the size of American Samoa, according to the Police Commissioner.

The Commissioner told the committee that based on the pay scale passed by Gov. Lolo, the starting salary for a police officer is $16,346 per year.

Le’i elaborated on the need for more police officers to adequately perform their mission of protecting the public, solving crime and other police work.

He was questioned by Manu’a #2 Rep. Tiaoalii Fau Sai who asked why only females were hired for Ofu and Olosega, when there were also male applicants for the district.

In response to Tiaoalii’s question, Le’i said that while there were male applicants, only female applicants passed the test. “I’m afraid to go into details with the test results because I have a lot of respect for these applicants’ families. But to be honest with your question, the results are really bad,” said Le’i.

One of the problems the Commissioner told the committee that he wants to address before his terms expires is increasing of budget for the department. For the new Fiscal Year budget, Le’i proposes that all of the COVID-19 funding — including hires, maintenance funds for the new vehicles, equipment and other acquisitions by the department, along with salary increases for police officers — be added to the current budget.

He said he has informed the Budget Office that he will present the proposed budget for DPS directly to the Fono and the amount will be $10 million, $4 million more that the set budget ceiling. Le’i further stated to the committee that DPS’s budget for the current fiscal year is a little over $5 million and it’s not enough to carry out DPS’s operation.

Lei’s proposed plan did not sit well with the chairman of the House Budget and Appropriations Committee, Rep. Vailiuama Steve Leasiolagi. While he agreed with Lei’s statement the DPS is under-budgeted, he advised him that the ASG budget must be balanced and he needs to submit his budget request to the Budget Office.

Fofo Representative, Andra Samoa told Le’i that DPS needs to address the issue of illegal drugs in the territory. She told the Commissioner her constituents are not safe anymore because their homes are being burglarized.

Samoa further told Le’i that it’s clear from the newspaper’s reports almost everyday DPS should be able to identify the two main places where drugs normally come from. And the two main placed according to Samoa are alleged to be ‘Le Aute’ and ‘Le Filifili’.

“Our village is not safe anymore due to the problem of drugs and domestic violence. A lot of homes have been vandalized because of people who are using drugs and it is a fact that there are two main places where drugs are allegedly being distributed according to the newspaper’s report,” Samoa told Le’i.

According to the faipule, it’s almost every day that people are being arrested and charged for violating local drug laws. Most of the drug cases brought into court stem from incidents when police officers pull over vehicles for traffic violations and later discover drugs — not only inside the vehicle but also on the driver’s or passenger’s person.

BACKGROUND

The two drugs of concern in American Samoa are methamphetamine and marijuana. Quantifying the drug threat in American Samoa is difficult, as statistics are not readily available. However, it is believed that methamphetamine or ‘aisa’ has recently supplanted marijuana as the most serious drug threat in American Samoa. Law enforcement authorities further point to rising methamphetamine use as the cause for a rise in violent crime in the territory, including domestic violence.

The mail system and cargo vessels — ship and airplane — are said to be the smuggling tools of the drugs into American Samoa from off-island, as well as between Tutuila and Manu’a and Samoa to American Samoa and visa-versa.

The Fono passed laws in 1999 making the possession of even small amounts of the illegal drugs punishable by long jail terms with no possibility of parole. Media reports widely publicize the sentences given offenders, as well as the fact there is no drug abuse program on island to help users.