Guam News - Community Events

Guam - If you’re planning to commit a crime on Guam, watch out. Law enforcement investigators are learning more about how to use forensic evidence to catch criminals at the Second Regional Forensic Science Symposium, which starts today [Wednesday]  and runs through Friday, September 9, at the Harvest Christian Academy Family Life Center in Toto.

Sponsored by Guam Community College and Friends of the Crime Lab, Inc., the symposium features crime scene experts from Hawaii and Los Angeles, including returnees Dr. Lee Goff, a forensic entomologist at Chaminade University and a consultant for the popular TV series CSI, and Steven Renteria, a crime scene expert from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. The two experts presented at last year’s first symposium. Joining them this year is Goff’s colleague, Professor Ron Becker, an underwater crime scene expert at Chaminade.

[Crime scene experts Prof. Ron Becker and Dr. Lee Goff, both from Chaminade University, and Steven Renteria of the LA County Sheriff’s Department, are the expert presenters at the Second Regional Forensic Science Symposium happening today through Friday at the HCA Family Life Center in Toto.]

Over 250 students and local and regional law enforcement officials have registered for the three-day conference. Featured presentations include DNA/CSI Basics, Entomology, Underwater Crime Scenes, Bomb/Arson Investigations, and Forensic Accounting & Fraud Investigations. On Friday, September 9, Goff, Renteria, and Becker will join Guam pathologist Dr. Aurelio Espinosa and Zenobia Lynn and Monica Salas, criminalists with the Guam Police Department, in a panel discussion entitled, “New Standards & Problems with Forensic Evidence.”

In her opening remarks today, Dr. Mary Okada, GCC President, said she hoped that what they learn today will inspire GCC students studying in the two forensic concentrations of Criminal Justice to continue their education and “one day be the expert presenters at these symposiums.”

GCC has offered Forensic Computer Examiner and Forensic Lab Technician concentrations in its Criminal Justice program since Spring semester 2010. Also last year, the Department of Interior awarded the College a Capital Improvement Project grant of $365,653 to pay for architecture and engineering designs for DNA lab and toxicology facilities at the campus’s Gregorio D. Perez Crime Lab. Okada said the vision for the Crime Lab is to have it serve as “a regional facility - a place where law enforcement officials from Micronesia can send their DNA samples and come for training.”

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