K9: Top cop dog runs down offender
THE Orana Mid-western Police District has now been running for the last eight weeks and Superintendent Peter Mckenna said that now Dubbo has consolidated with Mudgee and brought in Warren, Coonamble and Gulargambone, he’s found police have been able to increase the service to those communities far exceeding what they would have been able to do without this district being formed.
“An example of that is, over the last two months we’ve conducted 16 search warrants across the district, servicing all of those communities, bringing police from Dubbo in numbers across to those smaller areas, and making significant arrests,” Supt Mckenna said.
“We’ve arrested and charged over 450 persons in that period of time across the whole district and the particular focus has been on property related crime, which we really want to see drop right down. That’s an issue for not only Dubbo but western NSW and we have seen reductions across the board,” he said.
In the past week Narromine has benefited from these “swarm” style tactics, where police assemble in a critical mass.
“An offender from Narromine was identified as being in a premises there, so we utilised the police dog and took other resources across from Dubbo,” Supt Mckenna said.
“Police entered the premises, he jumped out a window, jumped a fence and tried to run, we had sufficient resources there to effect his arrest, in fact the police dog took him down.
“He had a number of revocation of parole warrants so he’s been arrested and charged now, but previously that might have just been the Narromine car crew doing their best - just two police officers turning up and may not have had that ability to contain those premises, and effectively and safely make that arrest,” he said.
This comes on top of the arrest of escaped fugitive Ben Biffen in Mudgee after being on the run for three weeks, initially absconding from Dubbo Hospital.
DUBBO PHOTO NEWS has been calling for overhead cameras and other tactics to be rolled out to catch drivers talking, texting and Facebooking on their phones, and it seems the powers that be and other media are jumping on board.
I saw a video the other week where Canadian police are posting officers in buses where they have a great vantage point to spot motorists who are doing the wrong thing, such as driving while using their phone, and calling other police units in to stop the offending vehicles.
If we saw that happen across NSW, after a few thousand very public charges I don’t think many people would be using their phones whenever a bus was in sight.
It was interesting to see that the recent blitz saw more than 1200 drivers caught red-handed using their phones.
Inattention is behind so many crashes these days and our wiredin digital world has a lot to answer for.
Claims cops have copped a dud budget
THE re-engineering of NSW police has copped a spray from the Opposition across the board, with ALP claims the Productivity Commission figures highlight a “drastic $480 million fall in policing expenditure in NSW”.
This will mean the performance of amalgamated commands such as our new structure will come under increasing scrutiny as the politics hots up leading into next year’s election, with local councillor and Labor candidate hopeful Steve Lawrence using this data to take a swipe at Member for Dubbo Troy Grant, who doubles as the state’s Police Minister.
But while that background debate is sure to heat up in the next few months, it looks like our local thin blue line is organising itself to best use the resources it’s been allocated.
Certainly I’m hearing that outlying communities are pleased with some of their worst crooks being locked up after such a long time on the run.
Fire in the hole
OUR firies have been kept pretty busy over the past week. The local bushfire brigades were called out Mogriguy way and spent a few torturous hours in the heat, getting a small blaze under control and blacking it out during the week.
It’s so hot and the grass is so tinder dry that it doesn’t take much imagination to see what could happen if the local Rural Fire Service brigades weren’t able to respond so quickly.
NSW Fire and Rescue pumpers have also had a busy week, with a bit of effort required to extinguish a fire on Shire Avenue.
In this most dramatic of contributed pictures (above), Shane Vincent captures the ferocity of the car fire which saw a local 43-yearold man airlifted to Sydney’s Concord burns unit in a serious condition after his vehicle caught fire as he was leaving Dubbo on the Dunedoo Road last Sunday.
Police say the blaze began under the dashboard.
Years ago, a truck I was driving caught alight under the dashboard, sparked by an electrical fault, and it was amazing how quickly it caught hold, so I can attest first-hand that it’s a terrifying experience.
Facebook’s foul comments
I HATE gutless pieces of crap who hide behind fake Facebook profiles, but the behaviour of one individual this past week has gone beyond anything I’ve ever seen.
Kailem Barwick would have celebrated his 21st birthday this week if a debilitating disease hadn’t wrenched him from his family and friends last year.
A scumbag using a fake profile started commenting foul posts on the page of Kailem’s dad, Tony, who shared them around in the hopes of unearthing the culprit.
Within a few hours the post had been shared 671 times and more than 500 comments had been posted, with overwhelming disgust that a human being could be so fundamentally evil towards a family still suffering such a loss.
Police are looking into this, and judging from some of the punishments imagined by the enraged online audience, this individual had better hope the police find him first.
Charges can be laid for this sort of foul behaviour and I hope the list of offences ends up being a long one, with some severe consequences at the end of it.
My heart goes out to Tony and his family as well as Kailem’s huge network of friends they really don’t make people any nicer than the Barwicks.
I see some firearms were stolen from a Birch Avenue property on Monday - a .308 rifle and a couple of .22s. That offence is serious but it doesn’t affect me nearly as much as our foul-smelling Facebook friend.
But if anyone does have information on that break and enter, please contact Dubbo police.
Firey debate
THE state government may be feeling the heat over claims the police budget has been recently slashed while all other states have at least held the line, but there’s another issue brewing which is going to cause ongoing angst.
Farmers affected by the Warrumbungles blaze are still furious at the way the fire was “managed” and aren’t happy about the way they weren’t looked after, especially when they believe it was compounded by decisions at state agencies which caused the worst of the destruction.
Now we’re looking at 12 months since the Sir Ivan blaze wreaked so much havoc across Dunedoo and Coolah properties, and I reckon that resentment is going to translate into votes for the Shooters and Fishers at the next election.
The Volunteer Firefighters Association (VFFA) mustered 17 volunteers to man booths in the recent Orange by-election and if they weren’t responsible for getting the Shooters at least the 80 votes they need to clinch victory, my name’s not Attila the Hun.
If the VFFA mobilise at the next election, it could really change the result in at least a few seats, and sometimes that’s all it takes to topple a government.
Along with the NSW Farmers Association, I welcome the Coronial Inquiry into the Sir Ivan fire, but I don’t have much hope that it will spark the cultural change so desperately needed in the highest echelons of the Rural Fire Service (RFS).
The volunteers on the frontline also deserve better.
z Send your news tips to john.ryan@panscott.com.au or 0429 452 245 txt is best