Reported crimes down as offenders take a break

South Hedland police are optimistic about winning the fight on rising crime levels after the station recorded the lowest number of reported offences in three months.

Senior Sergeant Dean Snashall said for the week ending Sunday, June 12 there was 30 offences reported to police, a reduction of 15 offences from previous weeks.

“We’ve been hovering around the 40-45 mark for the last few months, so it was a big reduction,” he said.

“We only had five stealings reported for the week, which was down from 14 the week before and three burglaries which was down from seven reported in the week previous.

“The only upward trending offence is unfortunately domestic assaults, which we have little or no control over other than we continue to be proactive arresting offenders when they’re reported.

“Overall we’re really happy with the week that’s just gone, hopefully this trend will continue.”

These comments follow a worrying increase in burglaries, stealing and damage in the first four months of the year, which prompted Sen. Sgt Snashall to submit a letter to theNorth West Telegraph in May'''' appealing to the public to contact the police with concerns and ideas on battling crime in Hedland.

He said it was encouraging to see an increase in calls from members of the public since this time, adding that community intelligence played a crucial part in reducing crime in town.

“We did unfortunately have some incidents on Friday night with some more rock-throwing ... but it’s really encouraging that people are ringing us when it’s happening as it gets us in the right area at the right time,” he said.

“I’m hoping with all the publicity and information we are giving the public around crime and how its up and down ... it’s giving people the impetus to contact us when they’re seeing things happen.”

Sen. Sgt Snashall said following the success of Operation Double Shot which removed more than 250 at-risk children from the streets, police would continue to run similar night patrols with Department of Child Protection and Family Services officers into the school holidays.

“We are planning now for school holidays starting on July 4, we’re expecting that will be a busy time for us,” he said.

“We will work on a couple of operations over that two-week period ... CPFS are really keen on continuing the joint night shift operations we’ve been running previously.

“Double Shot may not exist by name after June 30, but it will continue to exist into the future in some other format, depending on what resources we have available at the time.”