Why Wide Bay urgently needs District Duty Officers

The Wide Bay is the only policing district from Cairns to the Gold Coast that does not have District Duty Officers. Here is why they are urgently needed.

District duty cop out logo

Every day, the public expects police to be ready to go into situations most of us would find unfathomable.

Incidents of terrible violence, road trauma, break-ins, drug abuse, you name it and the expectation is police will be at the forefront of the response, knowing what to do in every situation.

From very experienced officers to those fresh out of the academy, they are on the frontline.

Unlike most other regions in Queensland, in the Wide Bay policing district there are no mobile senior officers, referred to as District Duty Officers, that officers called out to serious incidents can call upon for their leadership and experience.

That is why News Corp has run a campaign over the past week, calling on the urgent addition of five of these officers to the Wide Bay policing district.

In the Wide Bay policing district there are no mobile senior officers, referred to as District Duty Officers, that officers called out to serious incidents can call upon for their leadership and experience.

Like most regional cities where populations have boomed so rapidly and there is disproportionate disadvantage and a jail close by, the region has been in the grips of a crime wave.

Tragically, it has taken the death of a man in a Maryborough schoolyard for us to realise what those behind closed doors already knew – that unlike its southern and city neighbours, this area was missing a crucial element in keeping the community and its police officers safe.

On March 3, 2020, officers were called to Granville where a man, carrying a jerry can in one hand and a lighter in the other, had walked into a park threatening to set himself on fire.

In the officers’ body-worn camera footage it is clear they are putting what they have been trained to do in action, trying to get the man to stop moving so they can have a conversation with him and try to contain the situation.

With no DDO to call upon, these officers were managing the situation on the fly, relying on their training and skills in a situation that was completely unfamiliar to them.

During an inquest into the man’s death, the officers each said they had never encountered anything like it before.

One thing they had encountered, time and time again, was people in the throes of a mental health crisis.

This is another expectation we are now putting on officers – the ability to be able to quickly defuse mental anguish and calm people who are suicidal, something even trained specialists might struggle to do.

The man was in the middle of what one officer termed a “schizophrenic break”.

Repeated attempts to talk to him failed to build a rapport and one of the officers repeatedly referred to him by his brother’s name due to a miscommunication.

When asked during the inquest who was in charge of the scene that night, there was no single answer given by the officers.

Now, after the inquest into the death of William George Grimes two years ago, his brother David says there’s still questions that remain and answers may never be possible.

The presence of a District Duty Officer would have changed that.

These officers are usually senior sergeants with no less than 15 years’ experience.

Their role is to be available to other officers to provide leadership at challenging and high risk incident.

They are mobile and able to get to the scene or at least provide constant guidance over the phone.

While senior supervisors are often tied up with paperwork, these officers are there specifically to be on the frontline.

That night, when the man walked from the park into the grounds of a nearby school, the four officers at the scene did their best to try to talk to him, to stop tragedy from happening.

But when the man doused himself with fuel and made a motion to ignite himself, one of the officers was forced to make a call, using his taser to try to prevent him from self-harming.

According to experts who testified, it is not known whether the lighter or taser ignited the flames.

We will never know if a DDO at the scene would have changed that particular situation.

But we do know that expecting Wide Bay police to confront high risk situations in the future without this important human resource is unfair to those officers and could lead to future bad outcomes that could be prevented.

Do you need help?

Lifeline 13 11 14

headspace 1800 650 890

beyondblue 1300 224 636

Suicide callback service 1300 659 467

Originally published as Why Wide Bay urgently needs District Duty Officers