By ERWIN CHLANDA
The images of the Territory Response Group (TRG) shown on last Friday’s ABC TV News, which was partly the subject of a comment in the Alice Springs News Online, were from file footage taken in 2011.
This has been confirmed by an ABC spokesperson today when asked by the News.
A police spokesperson says the footage, showing masked officers with military assault weapons, was not provided by the police in connection with an interview with Commissioner Reece Kershaw, speaking about preparations police were making for the expected disturbances caused by young people in summer.
The ABC reported that Commissioner Kershaw “has revealed plans to send a unit of camouflaged, specialised police with military-grade assault weapons to patrol Darwin and Alice Springs at night”.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner has since tweeted: “Police are active in Alice but I can guarantee there are no assault rifles or camouflaged police on patrol. The TRG are in town to support General Duties officers with specialised operational assistance re equipment for night time patrols. All straightforward stuff.”
And:
“TRG are supporting General Duties officers and they are not doing it in camo or with assault rifles. They are doing it with specialised night time equipment.”
Commissioner Kershaw said during the launch in Darwin today of the Territory Intelligence and Coordination Centre, in a comment on the intiatives concerning children: “We are not talking about active shooters of counter-terrorism here.”
Asked by a journalist whether the assault weapons and camouflage gear would be used Commissioner Kershaw said: “If it is for an active shooter they will be, in a counter terrorism incident they would be. I can’t go into specifics on that front.
“What I can say is their particular task is around assessment and identifying criminal activity at night time.”
Saturday, April 20, 2024
The freedom of the press still furnishes that check upon government which no constitution has ever been able to provide – Chicago Tribune.
Where will the patrols be? In town? CBD? The hills? The gangs will then shift to other suburbs very quickly and the patrols will not be able to be everywhere. Make the parents responsible!
I would like to thank CM Gunner for clarifying the issue of armed and masked TRG police being deployed on the streets of Alice over the coming summer. There won’t be any. Good!
The use of specialised equipment to assist operational officers is a good idea. The perpetrators of youth crime need to be identified.
But this begs the question of what will be done with these young criminals once identified? We can’t hold them in detention, we can’t hold the parents accountable, it seems we can’t do much of anything, really.
These plans are not very encouraging. I suppose they will keep the vigilantes off the streets, but will they keep the kids off them as well?
Perhaps these running-amok kids can be identified as coming from a specific community, and then the royalty payments going to their community can be sequestered until the damages done by them to the residents of Alice have been fully paid for?
If all that fails contact Hollywood and call in Robocop. He’ll definitely clean things up.
@ Hal Duell: Hal, the royalties are paid to Aboriginal corporations with strict rules about who gets money and what they can spend it on. As far as I know recompense would be outside the rules.
Besides, if the kids came from a community, say The Gap, would the residents want to be sharing the responsibility for their behaviours? And why is that different?
We need to be finding ways to intervene in the kids’s lives earlier.