Worst crime in Qld: Mount Isa held hostage by teenage menaces

Many have nothing, living in housing commission homes, while others are gainfully employed, driving a new Toyota. This is Mount Isa - Queensland’s outback crime capital. WATCH THE VIDEO

• Watch: Night in Qld’s crime capital
• Terror: 13 security cameras, no sleep

A group of 30 hard-core teenage offenders menace the Mount Isa community day and night, and cops know them all by name.

Residents of the once great outback town live paralysed by fear, too scared to leave their home, walk to their car alone, or even drive at night as youth crime holds them hostage in their own town.

Youths have taken over a hill in town – now dubbed ‘Rexona Hill’ – dedicated to dangerous chroming, and many live in complete poverty in a suburb people have labelled ‘The Bronx’

A group of youth roaming the streets at 12:30am in Mount Isa. Picture: Liam Kidston

Security guards man the doors at local shopping centres and fast-food outlets, aerosols are locked up in stores, businesses armour their windows and cars are stolen almost every day.

Police data obtained by The Courier-Mail show the rate of crime for the small population of 18,000 is the worst in the state. Our own Alice Springs.

More than 41 people in every 1000 were broken into in the last year, and more than 10 in every 1000 had their car stolen, a dizzying rate which almost doubles other crime-riddled regions like Townsville and Cairns.

Car thefts have more than doubled in four years, and break ins have gone up by almost 50 per cent.

Traeger MP Robbie Katter says the crime epidemic happening in North Queensland was forgotten by politicians in the southeast, saying there was an obvious “geographical bias”.

Locals and police say it’s the worst crime has ever been, and there are several complex reasons behind the scourge gripping the town.

Youths hooning at Martin St, Mount Isa

Stolen car being driven off road, Mount Isa.

VICTIMS TELL ALL

Everyone in Mount Isa has either been a victim of youth crime, or knows someone who has, locals say.

It’s a sad reality, but one that security guard John Harris has lived out regularly during his 50 years in the town.

Mr Harris has been seriously assaulted about eight times in his five years on the job, had a knife pulled on him, had rocks, cans of Coke and Rexona cans hurled at him. All juveniles.

“There’s been major changes,” he said.

“Groups of 20 kids wandering around, running into Coles and Kmart, grabbing what they can and running out.”

Mother and daughter Janet Emmerson and Clare Lehmann have watched the town they love turn into a place they no longer recognise.

Janet has had her bag snatched while shopping more than once. She’s been broken into and had her handbag stolen.

Janet Emmerson and daughter Clare Lehmann. Picture: Liam Kidston

Clare has had four bicycles stolen from her house, and recounted multiple stories of locals in town facing worse fates.

“They tried to run down one of the new doctors,” she said.

“It’s the worst it’s ever been.”

Even Mount Isa Catholic parish priest Father Mick Lowcock has been a victim of car theft.

Everyone has a story, and they are begging for help.

BUSINESSES LOSING OUT

The scourge is not only impacting residents but taking a huge hit on businesses.

Annie Cremer works as the manager in Just Jeans, one of the first shops you come across inside the Mount Isa Village shopping centre, a hot spot for lurking teenagers.

Annie has watched the crime escalate around her to the point where she doesn’t like going out anymore.

“It started a bit slower. Just a few little gangs … kids sort of doing their thing, but over the years it’s escalated … it’s just getting worse and worse,” she said.

“People don’t want to come in and now it’s escalated to the fact they are getting people when they go to their cars.”

EB Games manager Sarah Gregor approaches the kids when they enter her store, breaking the barrier and asking them questions – a tactic she says works.

Sarah says not enough businesses are doing this, but others, who are too afraid to be named, say they are petrified of going to work.

On the other side of town, a worker inside a grocery store recounts how one of her employees was punched by a teenager recently.

They’d been broken into countless times, including through the roof, and had thousands of dollars in stock stolen- mainly alcohol and cigarettes.

The woman’s children have moved away out of fear one day someone will be killed, and she wished she could join them.

“If I didn’t have a family to support I’d be long gone,” she said.

Deodorant cans found at Rexona Hill in Mount Isa. Picture: Liam Kidston

POLICE WEIGH IN

Sitting in his office with crime statistics pulled up on his computer, Mount Isa Detective Inspector Dave Barron isn’t sugar coating the town’s issues.

“Youth crime has elevated, that’s undeniable,” Inspector Barron said.

He came to Mount Isa six years ago and has watched first hand how things have changed.

“I feel that it wasn’t as overt when I first got here. I think that the level of seriousness of the crime has elevated.

“Previously we would have youths breaking in for money for food from someone’s back veranda … it’s morphed into stealing keys and taking the car.”

Inspector Barron said the shift happened in 2019, with many factors including poverty, social media and contact with hard-core offenders in detention centres contributing to the problems.

“People are just broken,” he said.

Mount Isa District Detective Inspector Dave Barron. Picture: Liam Kidston

But Mount Isa has its own specific catalysts to the problem, including the impacts of wet season creating a “pressure cooker” of crime and the proximity to the Northern Territory.

There are about 200 police in the district, and about 60 officers based out of Mount Isa.

With regional towns comes fresh-faced First Year Constables cutting their teeth, but Inspector Barron sees this as a major advantage.

“What comes with that is a whole bunch of enthusiasm. While they might lack technical skills and life experience all that, but they’re also not burnt out, desensitised and disengaged.”

ROOT CAUSES

A selection of run down housing commission homes reminiscent of a third world country has been dubbed “The Bronx” by locals.

It’s an area on the way into town where police spend a lot of their time disrupting bad behaviour, and where a lot of children live.

You’ll see discarded alcohol on the streets, prams hanging from power poles and trolleys cast into drains.

Group of youths in Mount Isa. Picture: Liam Kidston

“The poverty you see is in your face. There’s a section of the community that have nothing, and then there’s a section of the community that is gainfully employed driving a new Toyota,” Detective Inspector Baron said.

“That hurts a bit to see.”

Mount Isa Catholic parish priest Mick Lowcock runs a 24hr youth hub in town where kids are looked after and leave with a full belly of food.

He sees the underlying issues first hand, and explains the trauma a lot of children in Mount Isa have faced, including addiction, alcohol and drug abuse, broken families and poverty.

“Poverty has become increasingly worse and it’s a cycle you can’t get out of,” Fr Mick said.

Originally published as Worst crime in Qld: Mount Isa held hostage by teenage menaces