State Flying Squad swoops on ‘high-value’ Cairns criminals
Some of Cairns’ most wanted crims have been taken off the street in a crackdown on high-risk offenders who have been charged with a total of 620 offences during a week-long blitz.
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Some of Cairns’ most wanted crims have been taken off the street in a crackdown on high-risk offenders who have been charged with a total of 620 offences during a week-long blitz.
Police from the Far North District supported by the State Flying Squad charged 206 people with the offences in what’s been described as a highly successful operation.
Wrapping up on Tuesday, the operation was coming together of specialist police including the Tactical Crime Squad, Dog Squad, Criminal Investigation Branch, Highway Patrol and the Police Helicopter.
Superintendent Mick Searle said though the operation busted 44 minors the focus was on clearing outstanding offences and targeting high-risk adult offenders.
He said officers responded to breaking offences such as the arrest of two drug-affected offenders on Sunday accused of robbing a Lake St tobacconist while also hunting down offenders who had warrants out for their arrest.
“Some very high-value highly sought-after offenders who we’ve been chasing for a while have been targeted and apprehended,” he said.
“These sort of deployments give us the resources that we can properly target and apprehend those people in a really structured and safe way.
“And some of the crimes that we’ve been able to solve … that will give comfort to the victims of those crimes, that their matters have been attended to, and that the person who might have been causing them concern … has been taken away.”
Three teen boys accused of stealing several vehicles from a Trinity Beach business were among the hundreds of offenders taken down during the seven-day sting.
On May 5 police allege the boys form Edmonton, Earlville and Bungalow stole the cars which included a blue MG. The car was later dumped in Edge Hill where the boys were arrested after being tracked by the police helicopter.
Detective Acting Inspector Cindy Searle said it was a good result to get the alleged tobacco shop robbers off the street with the help of a couple of tradies who stepped in to restrain a man until police arrived at the scene.
“Police can’t be everywhere at every moment,” she said.
“And while we do definitely appreciate the community input and the support, we also ask people to be mindful of their own safety (and) we don’t want somebody getting hurt in an attempt to intervene.
“We’re very grateful to the two tradies that intervened. so that (the offenders) could be made accountable for their behaviours.”
Acting Inspector Searle however stopped short of describing the tradies as heroes.
On the highly politicised issue of Cairns crims statistics Superintendent Searle wouldn’t be drawn on increasing offending rates but did say there was more to issues of law and order than just looking at arrest figures.
“We need to start looking at it very holistically … it’s a much wider problem than just looking at crime statistics,” he said
“I think we really need to look socially right across the board and address it as an entire community (issue) within the Far North.”
The deployment also focused heavily on targeting high-risk domestic violence offenders and supporting victim-survivors during the operation that coincided with the kick-off of Queensland Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month on May 1.
Originally published as State Flying Squad swoops on ‘high-value’ Cairns criminals
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