Inside the raids: 500 charged in hunt for most violent DV offenders

More than 500 people have been charged with 900 serious offences during a four-day high-impact operation targeting NSW’s most dangerous domestic violence offenders. SEE THE VIDEO

More than 500 people have been charged with 900 serious offences during a four-day high-impact operation targeting the state’s most dangerous domestic violence offenders.

Police say 1000 dangerous targets have been “engaged”.

Heavily-armed tactical response teams — the kind usually seen hunting down and disrupting bikies and organised crime gangs — swept through Sydney suburbs and regional towns from Wednesday to Saturday.

High-risk violent targets were taken into custody, some after hiding like cowards in manholes, roof cavities, even in makeshift cardboard box cubby houses and among rubbish in back sheds.

Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said Operation Amarok’s “offender-centric” targeting mirrors policing strategies for other violent crime types.

“With the protection of victims at the forefront of everything we do, we need to treat these dangerous domestic violence offenders as we would organised criminals, child abusers or terrorists,” Assistant Commissioner Smith said.

This offender is a big man when faced with a woman but decidedly smaller when grabbed in his undies by cops.

“With Operation Amarok, we’ve shifted our focus to the offender and deployed our officers in the same manner as we would for any violent criminal. The operation results speak for themselves.”

This week’s operation is the third since January, with police nabbing more than 2000 wanted domestic violence offenders so far this year.

An alleged offender arrested as part of Operation Amarok raids across Sydney and regional NSW so far this year.

Since Wednesday, more than 20 firearms and 40 other prohibited weapons have been seized, as well as various types of illicit drugs.

Police have checked compliance of more than 3500 Apprehended Domestic Violence Orders, carried out more than 1000 bail compliance checks and completed more than 100 Firearm Prohibition Order searches.

In Tuggerah Lakes Police District, officers launched an investigation after a woman presented at Wyong Hospital with facial injuries and bruises to her arms and legs.

Police were told she had been repeatedly assaulted by a man known to her over a 26-hour period. He was found in the common area of a building at Wyong before he attempted to run from police.

An alleged offender arrested as part of Operation Amarok raids.

After a short struggle, he was arrested and charged with intentionally choking a person without consent, taking a person with intent to cause a serious indictable offence, two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, stalking and contravening a prohibition/restriction in AVO. He was also charged with breaching bail and hindering police.

The Nepean Domestic Violence Team were conducting a welfare check on a victim at Jordan Springs on Thursday when they saw a man nearby, who was allegedly breaching his apprehended domestic violence order and had outstanding warrants.

When he saw police he fled.

The dog squad was called in to search for the man, where he jumped a number of fences before being arrested.

Operation Amarok conducted a four-day operation this month.

The 35-year-old was charged with sexually touching without consent, contravene an AVO, assault causing actual bodily harm and assault.

In the first operation in January, police nabbed 600 people, including 164 of the state’s most wanted domestic violence offenders.

In one raid they found a wanted man hiding underneath the house, using a concealed trap door in a cupboard.

The South West Metropolitan Region Domestic Violence High-Risk Offender Team hunted down a wanted man who had been actively avoiding police.

This man was found trying to hide under rubbish in a backyard shed when police came knocking.

The 29-year-old was sighted getting into a car at Yagoona and was followed to Bankstown, where officers approached him getting out of the car. The man allegedly ran from police and pushed members of the public over as he attempted to escape.

In April this year the hunt continued, with stage two of Amarok targeting city suburbs and regional NSW.

Another 644 people were arrested and charged with domestic violence-related offences, weapons and drugs charges.

Most important to investigators was nabbing 314 people identified among NSW’s most dangerous domestic violence offenders and 164 of those had outstanding warrants for violent offences.

Deputy Commissioner Mal Lanyon said domestic violence was the biggest community issue of our generation.

“We continue to battle the perception that domestic violence is a ‘family matter’ and therefore should be treated as ‘private business.’ That is certainly not the case.

“It is a community matter, and we all have a part to play in stopping the senseless loss of lives due to this crime.”

We are hunting for the predator

Named after a mythical wolf, a highly-skilled team of NSW Police officers is tracking the movements of predators who bring danger to victims in their own homes.

In Inuit legend the amarok hunted the hunter who killed a litter of wolf cubs. The hunter died of fright, knowing the ­amarok was on his tail.

While it’s only a legend, the analogy gives an insight into the focus and purpose of the NSW Police Force’s Project Amarok – the team tasked with high-risk operations to protect victims from the most dangerous domestic violence perpetrators.

Operation Amarok officers.

A man is arrested and handcuffed.

The team of experts profiles the most dangerous, high risk domestic and family violence offenders, using analytics to crossmatch both incident response and victim survivor information with contemporary offending patterns from the 139,000 incidents NSW Police respond to each year.

“From the first Amarok operations we are already seeing quite concerning behaviours from the profiling where perpetrators are more violent, more focused and more cunning than behaviours we see in fixated persons, bikies or child sex offenders,” Mr Smith said.

While Apprehended ­Violence Orders are focused on protecting victims by limiting a perpetrators’ access to them, Amarok targets threat ­assessment – spotting the types of offenders who pose an ­escalating, dangerous risk to their prey.

Deputy Commissioner Mal Lanyon said identifying and preventing “violent, confronting, and predatory behaviour” was the goal.

“We know that escalating behaviour, particularly if it involves a strangulation or suffocation offence, is highly likely to progress to homicide offending,” he said.

These offenders can expect “appropriate police targeting”, he said.

“As such, there is zero-tolerance for violence, intimidation and coercive and controlling behaviour, and anyone who commits any form of domestic and family violence can expect police to come knocking.”