Fights, drugs, weapons: Townsville area schools with most police call-outs

Police have responded to hundreds of incidents – some involving weapons – in two years at NQ schools. Search our intereactive to see the hotspots.

Police have handled more than 300 incidents – some involving weapons – inside the gates of NQ schools in the past two years, according to Queensland Police Service data.

Police have been called to more than 60 alleged assaults, 40 alleged drug incidents and five alleged weapon offences at schools in the Townsville region since 2020, the latest data shows.

The issue of violence in NQ schools has been highlighted by a number of recent shocking incidents, despite violent classroom crime being on the decline across the state.

Police were called to an incident where a student allegedly assaulted and injured multiple adults at Charters Towers State High School on Thursday.

It comes after a teacher’s aid was allegedly assaulted by a parent at Giru State School in May and a 13-year-old girl was taken to hospital after she was allegedly injured in a fight at Heatley Secondary College last February.

Former Townsville teacher Noel Gorringe also recently opened up about never being able to teach again after he was bashed and stabbed on two separate occasions in the classroom.

A Queensland Police spokeswoman said they had five School Base Police Officers (SBPO) in Townsville working across eight high schools.

She said the officers work closely with the schools and as trends are discovered or issues present, develop and implement programs aimed at early intervention.

“They, with the support of the Police Liaison Officers, have been facilitating the ‘I live my life... without a knife’ campaign,” she said.

“This campaign is a crime prevention initiative aimed at reducing knife carrying and knife-related crime among young people across the state by increasing awareness of the rules and consequences of knife carrying and encouraging safer behaviour.”

Queensland Police data showed how many times over the past six months, and past two years, officers charged someone with alleged drugs, weapons or assault crimes at schools across the Townsville region.

The Bwgcolman Community School on Palm Island recorded a large number of alleged assaults, with 11 incidents reported in the past two years, tied with Heatley Secondary College, which also recorded 11 alleged assaults.

Fortunately, assaults have since dropped to two cases at Bwgcolman and one at Heatley Secondary this year.

Other Townsville schools also recorded a large number of alleged crimes.

During the past six months, eight alleged drug offences were reported to police at Pimlico State High School, compared to 12 alleged drug offences reported over the past two years.

Kirwan State High School reported five alleged drug offences over a two-year period, Townsville State High School reported three and Vincent State School reported two.

The crimes recorded by police in the report were alleged — it was not known if the people charged were found guilty in a court.

The Queensland Police statistics contained many variables, including whether a juvenile, staff member, parent, or visitor committed the alleged offences.

Queensland Police Officer at a school.

The number of incidents was likely to be higher across the board, as police were not called to every school incident with a criminal element, nor did they report every incident they attended.

Also, larger schools would be expected, statistically, to be more likely to report such crimes.

A Department of Education spokesman said Queensland’s state schools were one of the safest places for young people, and any situation that threatens the wellbeing of the entire school community is treated seriously.

“Every state school has a student code of conduct that identifies the school’s expectations about behaviour and outlines the possible range of consequences that may be used to respond to inappropriate behaviour,” he said.

“This includes physical aggression or the use of illicit or banned substances.”

The spokesman said the size of a school population, as with any community of people, contributes to different rates of incidents reported.

“Depending on the situation and assessment of risk, principals may determine it is necessary to contact the Queensland Police Service to seek further assistance or report a serious incident.”

Originally published as Fights, drugs, weapons: Townsville area schools with most police call-outs