Police to keep toys brought in for Games

GOLD Coast police will have an extra tool in the fight against crime, following the Commonwealth Games.

The major operation centre where the police and other services ran their forces from will stay, leaving new technology and resources not used on the Coast before this month.

Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said the technology had never been used by police in Australia before the Games.

“We weren’t about doing something and just walking out, leaving nothing behind,” Mr Gollschewski said. “What we’ve built is some capability at the Gold Coast, that will continue to benefit from.”

Assistant Commissioner Brian Codd said: “The state-ofthe-art facility allows for integration of CCTV footage, communications footage that allows us to seamlessly respond and manage those events.

“It enabled us to deploy our people across the last two weeks in particular in a way I don’t think we’ve experienced before, knowing where our people are, knowing where potential challenges might be, hot spots or areas where we were needed.”

It was a rather uneventful Games for the police, with protesters and some minor incidents in the Safe Night Precincts the only real thing of note for officers.

There was also no registered terrorist or other threats stopped or thwarted by police, before, during, or after the Games.

A number of officers have told the Bulletin that outside of the Games, it was very quiet.

There was a slight drop in overall crime across the Coast, with local police registering a decrease in offences like assaults.

“We have a lot more analysis to do, very preliminary look … we’ve had a small reduction in offences against the person … overall offences were very much in normal frame,” Mr Codd said.