ALL EYES ON KIDS’ SAFETY
A TEXAS Ranger has helped Townsville police identify indicators which mean children could be at risk of harm.
Ranger Cody Mitchell spent the past two days in the city running workshops with frontline police, after helping to develop and implement a world- class technique to help identify at- risk children.
He said child safety was at the forefront of every police officer’s thought process.
“There is really no key indicators, it’s a series of indicators or a thought process that gets applied to situations where an officer would be able to evaluate whether or not there is an at- risk situation and be able to intervene based on those indicators,” Mitchell said.
“It is in the forefront of everybody’s concern, the safety of children, not just on a local level, but also a national level, on a worldwide level and I have seen the efforts the Queensland police depart- ment puts into fighting crimes against children on that worldwide level that even affects us over in the United States of America.
“I think we’re in the beginning stages of our learning process.
“In time I think we will become just as proficient as we are with other crimes.
“We’ve built a knowledge base and a confidence level to combat it.
“Just like everything else in the beginning it’s a little bit slow moving, because it’s a learning process.”
Officer in Charge Child Protection Unit, Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Miles, said 60 officers took part in the training.
“We can use this training on a daily basis when we’re looking for a child after an abduction alert or helping out with something,” he said.
“It’s highly beneficial for frontline police officers to receive the training session.
“What the training is looking at is identifying, for frontline police, indicators that can take investigations further if required.”
Sen- Sgt Miles said having a Texas Ranger run the workshops was great for local police and would help keep kids safe.
“The idea of this training is suggesting that every interception we do and every engagement may potentially be a situation where we have an opportunity to intercept and resolve a situation before it gets out of control.
“We need to tighten our vigilance of what might be occurring.”