WA Police to get tough on TikTok kid crime

Dozens more police officers, canine units and aerial observation resources will be sent to WA’s Kimberley in a bid to tackle the unprecedented youth crime crisis in the region.

WA deputy police commissioner Col Blanch.

Dozens more police officers, canine units and aerial observation resources will be sent to Western Australia’s Kimberley in a bid to tackle the unprecedented youth crime crisis in the region.

Police Minister Paul Papalia on Wednesday unveiled Operation Regional Shield, designed to tackle a TikTok-­inspired crime wave that has driven a spike in ­serious crime in the Kimberley in recent months.

The Australian revealed this week that four police officers had been hospitalised after having their police cars rammed by ­stolen vehicles participating in the social media challenge.

The federal eSafety Commissioner promised in the wake of those revelations to work with WA police and social media companies to remove that criminal content.

Deputy police commissioner Col Blanch said the social media-fed crime wave needed to stop. “There are criminal elements on what is called a TikTok challenge competing to do the worst problem possible,” Mr Blanch said.

“They’re going to kill someone. They’re going to kill themselves, they’re going to kill or seriously injure someone in the community, and for me as the deputy commissioner of police, I do not want any of my officers ­seriously injured or killed as a ­result of this behaviour.”

The Kimberley has witnessed some of the highest rates of serious crimes, including burglaries, car thefts and assaults, in recent months.

Mr Papalia said about 30 more officers would head to the Kimberley as part of the latest push to bring crime in the region under control and flagged that other arms of government would also be stepping up to take action.

“If you go back 20 years, there were 100 fewer police officers based in the Kimberley but the population has barely changed in that timeframe,” he said. “So it’s not about policing.

“What is going on is something else and it’s a challenge, a long-term challenge, and it will take a lot of different activity by all tiers of government, by community groups, by NGOs, and individuals to solve the problem.”

The launch of Operation Regional Shield came as the WA police union called for harsher sentences from the Department of Justice and greater support from social workers to help address the Kimberley’s issues.

WA police union president Mick Kelly said more help was needed from other departments to relieve the pressure on “overloaded” police officers.

“Our members are becoming very frustrated with this revolving wheel where they are apprehending these offenders who are committing these serious offences, they’re being detained and sent down to the Perth Children’s Court where there seems to be a reluctance to give these offenders serious detention because of ­issues with staffing,” he said.

The president of the Children’s Court, Hylton Quail, last week slammed the state of WA’s Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre, ordering the release of a boy who had assaulted guards at the centre 19 times after finding he had been locked in solitary confinement for 79 days.

Mr Kelly said while he understood why the judicial system would try to divert children away from detention, some who were being released on intensive supervision orders were then reoffending as soon as they returned to their communities.

“Ultimately, the core group of offenders … are probably past that rehabilitation phase and serious custodial sentences are required to set a deterrent,” he said.

The level of crime in the Kimberley, he said, was making it increasingly difficult to retain and attract officers to the region, with some towns well below required police staffing levels.