Thieves flaunt cop’s badge
A TOWNSVILLE police officer has become the latest victim of crime after brazen young thieves broke into his home and stole his badge.
The thieves boasted about their find on social media, sharing a video showing them hooning in stolen cars and spruiking the police badge earlier this month.
Queensland Police confirmed the police badge was stolen from an officer’s home on August 5.
Police were tight-lipped about the break-in, and did not confirm whether anything else was taken, how the thieves broke in or which suburb the officer lived in for “safety reasons”.
A spokesman said nobody had been arrested but investigations were ongoing.
The social media video is one of many posted to multiple accounts where the young offe fenders show off their crimes.
The same video also depicted people ripping up grass on an oval in two dual-cab utes, a driver speeding at more than 120km/h and a group of children with their faces covered posing for the camera. These videos are posted to a number of Instagram accounts.
The Townsville Bulletin reported on some of these accounts earlier this year, which were hashtagged WDT2P — “we don’t talk to police”.
James Cook University criminologist Mark David Chong spoke with the Bulletin at the time, stating that sharing the content was a way of asserting their status among other criminals.
Dr Chong said there were five main reasons young people used social media to share their offending — building status, communication, recruitment, creating an identity and keeping a record.
Police urged residents to report any images of illegal activity posted to social media.