Guam Cop Is Model of Leadership, Service, and Justice

About a week ago, my house was burglarized and about $2,000 of tools were stolen from my truck and shed. I contacted the Agat precinct when I got home and realized what had happened, thinking that it would probably just get logged somewhere and nothing would ever come of it. The dispatcher at the precinct told me that officers would come to my house to interview me. I started looking on Facebook Marketplace and found my stolen property listed on a few different ads. About 30 minutes after I first called, not one but two cruisers arrived at my house (thankful for a quiet evening) and I showed them the ads and the subsequent conversations I started with the “seller”. Officer Negrito was assigned as the lead on the case and came up with an idea to try to find the suspect; it was a generic (no real name) account but was able to get the seller to share their location. While Officer Negrito coordinated via radio, the other officers located the suspect.

Once the person was detained, Officer Negrito explained very well to me the options and ways forward. In summary, the goal was to get the items back. That same evening, the precinct was able to locate and contact the right people to get 90% of the stolen items back. They quickly logged them and returned them to me that same night. There was one item that could not be recovered.

Over the next five days, Officer Negrito contacted me by email or phone every day to update me, always very professional, always as informative as she could be. She was able to figure out where the last item had ended up and came in before her night shift to track it down and get it turned back into the station. She contacted me and got it back to me.

The precinct, and Officer Negrito’s hard work and professionalism were, in a word, very impressive. What is hard to define in the plot was her clear concern for community policing and safety. It was clear that within our small community, her, like my own, was not to “get ’em”, but rather to ensure that her community, including the suspect, were treated in the best, fairest manner possible so that everyone feels safer in our village.

In a world full of negative attention on our policing, and knowing the fiscally restrictive environment that our police exist in, I think that it is important to see how lots of dedicated work from a few great officers in the community can make a difference. Thank you to them.