Police launch major op on station thugs
QUEENSLAND Police have launched a large scale operation across the Gold Coast’s public transport system after a 17-year-old girl was brutally bashed.
Operation Romeo Luminous comes just a week after a teenage girl was beaten so severely near Helensvale Train Station doctors thought she had a broken neck.
Her assault was filmed and posted to social media.
Police said the operation brought officers together in a “high-visibility, proactive effort” to stop anti-social and criminal behaviour across the Gold Coast.
Detectives and uniformed officers will work together with TransLink to deter, detect and prevent property offences.
QPS Senior Sergeant Nick Sellars said the operation would see 40 officers from Beenleigh to Varsity Lakes at the heavy rail and light rail stations.
“We’re trying to put our police in the right place at the right time in order to address emerging issues,” he said.
“Currently we’re having issues in the northern part of the Gold Coast but we have offences reported across the whole of the Gold Coast and the transport network.
“We’ve had robberies reported, assaults reported, disorderly behaviour and public nuisance offences reported to us and we’ve certainly taken action for a lot of those.”
Despite public concern over an increase in youth crime around train and tram stations, Sen-Sgt Sellars said they were not focusing on specific age groups.
“Certainly the youth crime is a concern but what we’re seeing is people who should know better, who are older, committing offences too,” he said.
“So we’ve got to look at the message we’re sending to young people as well. It’s all ages, and some mature people misbehave too.”
Police have also established a pop-up Crime Prevention stand in Southport as part of the operation.
The Bulletin yesterday revealed teen thugs targeting Gold Coast trains are referring to their behaviour as “creeping”. They use the term to describe crimes involving travelling to the Gold Coast to commit break-and-enters, steal cars and bash and rob victims.
Police sources revealed four of the five robberies committed on the last weekend of March were allegedly committed by juveniles.