Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Stealing hits the top of the crime list, far outweighing any other crime in the territory, with 302 cases recorded by the Department of Public Safety. This was confirmed in its second quarterly report submitted by the Police Commissioner, Lefiti Aitulagi Pese to the Budget Director.

The review period in this report is from January- March 2022.

“The top five criminal charges served by Police Officers were assault, 110; public peace disturbance 99; stealing 302 and property damage 65 cases.

There were no homicide cases reported, but police officers responded to two robberies; 44 sexual abuse cases, 48 cases involving firearms; 68 domestic violence cases and 48 drug cases.

According to the report, the DPS responded to a total of 1,400 calls for assistance of which 650 are criminal cases, (300 traffic accidents and 40 Driving Under the Influence cases) 50 underaged drinking, 20 fire prevention and 104 calls requiring police assistance.

“There were 180 cases of dead on arrival at the LBJ hospital, 24 land disputes, eight juvenile runaway cases reported during this period.”

Furthermore the report says geographically, the Tafuna Police Substation responded to the most calls, the Central Fagatogo Station was next, with the Leone Police Substation and Fagaitua Police Substation following respectively in responses.

“The Manu’a Substations reported 29 criminal cases.”

The second quarterly report indicated that Criminal Investigations Division had 92 cases pending and received 122 new cases during the reviewed period with total of 188 cases they closed and 89 cases were prosecuted while 85 were deferred due to “no case unfounded”.

“The CID has 55 cases pending for investigation and disposition.

The report further noted that since the outbreak of Covid-19, the Police Academy has been postponed until further notice.

“There was also an intention to start the Fire Academy, yet funding is unavailable for this task. The salaries for the cadets and cost for the training is a subject to be discussed with the Government to fund…”

A total of $158,390 revenue was collected from the Office of Motor Vehicles for vehicle registration and driver’s licenses.

The budget for the DPS of $3.5 million has a balance of $707,052. Close to $1 million was allocated for prison and the field service bureau and a little over half a million for the fire services while more than $300,000 was allocated for the Commissioner’s office and $322,500 was used for support services.

The budget for the recreational boating safety program was $1.28 million for the reviewed period, whereas $362,052.16 was used for the office expenditures; $17,095,80 for the encumbrance with a remaining balance of $903,025.04 of the allocated budget.