A SPECIALIST team of four police officers has been appointed to the Chifley region to proactively target mid-level crime, including drug activity.
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On Monday, Deputy Commissioner Gary Worboys was joined in Bathurst by Western Region Commander, Assistant Commissioner Geoff McKechnie and member for Bathurst Paul Toole to make the announcement.
He said the Chifley Regional Enforcement Squad, which will include the Lithgow region, will have access to the best equipment to help prevent and fight crimes such as drug supply, firearm offences and property crime in Lithgow and its surrounding districts.
The introduction of the squad comes as part of the re-engineering process for police in regional NSW, which identified operational opportunities.
The squad consists of one sergeant and three constables.
Regional Enforcement Squads have previously been appointed in other regional areas with great success.
“These Regional Enforcement Squads have the opportunity now here in Bathurst to get out and target those criminals and really make a difference to people’s lives,” Deputy Commissioner Worboys said.
Assistant Commissioner McKechnie said the squad would provide “a capability that we’ve never had before” to deploy specialist police, investigators and equipment to combat specific problems.
“We are already seeing some significant arrests in the northern part of the region and it won’t be long before we see this team here in Bathurst really delivering a fantastic service to this community,” he said.
While there are only four officers in the squad at this stage, Assistant Commissioner McKechnie said that, with the officers in the other enforcement groups, it was possible to bring together 12 people very quickly.
“The beauty of it from our perspective is that it’s not impacting on the police district here in Bathurst,” he said.
“This is a whole new force, a whole new group of people we can deploy without impacting on rosters, without disrupting current investigations and get these people focused in whatever area in the region.”
Members of the community often remark that they’ve reported criminal activity, particularly drug-related, to police to investigate, but don’t hear back or feel their report isn’t taken seriously.
Assistant Commissioner McKechnie said the squad should eliminate this problem and help the community feel more secure.
“I want to assure people that we still need your help, we still need you to give us that information, provide us that feedback, tell us what is going on in your street, and here in Bathurst you will know that that information is being looked at, taken very seriously – as it always has been – but now we have this additional resource to throw at that problem,” he said.
Mr Toole echoed the comments of the Assistant Commissioner, saying this squad will target criminals driving crime in the region and help make the community safer.
