Action on the streets with Mandurah police patrol

The initiative came after a number of business owners expressed their concerns about safety in central Mandurah’s shopping precinct. 

“I am very pleased to announce that police have said that they will now put foot patrols in place during the summer period through the Smart Street Mall and along the Mandurah foreshore just to make sure they keep the pressure on those prolific priority offenders so they do not continue to target that foreshore area,” Ms Harvey said.

One month later, I joined the new foot patrol for a stroll around town to see what a normal shift looks like. Here is what I saw.

I followed two of the patrol officers – the patrol consists of three full-time senior officers and two part-timers – for their one-hour-round in Smart Street, the eastern foreshore and Tuckey Street.

Most of the team’s time was used to engage with local business owners who might have been victims of crime to find out more about local issues and to target common offenders.

Within the first minutes of the patrol, I had the chance to see some real action as the two officers caught a juvenile repeat offender shoplifting in one of the Smart Street Mall shops after a worker raised the alarm.

The officers stopped the young woman – who was already on file – there was some verbal action back and forth between her and the officers, and she was left free to go under the custody of an adult.

We carried on with our patrol down to the foreshore, where the officers found a person of interest.

They engaged in a customary talk with the man and asked him questions about where he was crashing that night and what he was up to among others. 

Those customary talks aim to gather information such as the person’s appearance and locations where he’s been seen on a given day.

They are recorded on the police database and are used to link a suspect to an offence.

On the last bit of our round, we checked a tucked away corner under a carpark ramp on Tuckey Street, a common spot for homeless people to spend the night.

We found some old pillows and blankets, a couple of drinks and some personal belongings, but their owners weren’t around.

We then finished the patrol in Sholl Street, where a young man approached the officers shortly after he was threatened to report the incident. 

Police took notice of the incident, they made sure he was safe to go home by himself and checked to see if the offenders were around, but they had already fled.

After my experience patrolling the streets with the new team I concluded that one, their main duty is to have a presence in the area to deter crime.

And two, that it is very important to build up a relationship with the local business owners and workers to gather information about local crime.

Mandurah police senior constable and foot patrol team member Russel Lindquist said crime around Mandurah’s CBD was very unpredictable, and it was hard to draw a solid crime pattern. 

However, he believed police presence in the area deterred crime.

He encouraged people to report suspicious behaviour to police on 131444.