Speaking yesterday, Wednesday 19 February, National Police Chief Major General Manuel Castro Castillo declared that the police investigative unit is effective and that the Dominican Republic’s Investigative Police is one of the most efficient in the region. Castro Castillo was responding to comments by the Attorney General of the Republic, Francisco Dominguez Brito, who described the investigation process by police officers at a crime scene as “inefficient and rudimentary.”
The Chief of Police said that in a high percentage of complex cases, “we solve them in record time and this is with a rudimentary police force… we know that we have to improve their living conditions… we have to professionalize, an investigative area that we have to improve.”
He said that President Danilo Medina himself was providing resources for the Police in all areas, but specifically for investigations, and to acquire the technological equipment to strengthen it. He added that the Police have properly trained personnel as well as using modern equipment in the area of investigation. He pointed out that after his appointment to the post they began to identify capable officers and academics with higher levels of education, and they have already trained more than 40 officers in the area of criminal investigation. “For us this is an improvement in the profile of the members of the investigative area,” he said.
Earlier this week, Attorney General Dominguez Brito was quoted as saying that it was laughable to see Scientific Police officers dusting for fingerprints. Diario Libre reporters were given access to the Police criminal investigation area where they were shown the equipment used to obtain fingerprints as well as a modern ballistic laboratory. “It is not true that the investigative area of the Police does not do its job, it is very efficient and there is the evidence, the cases that are solved and handed over to the justice system,” he said. He warned that other areas of the system have to be revised, “as the Police is reviewed and its weaknesses corrected.”
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2014/02/20/i491911_castro-castillo-defiende-capacidad-tcnica-polica-nacional.html