Community & Business
1 April, 2022
Crime prevention officers tour the Darling Downs
Crime prevention officers from across the Darling Downs visited Kingsthorpe and Goombungee.
Sergeant Tony Rehn said this has been the first time since most of the lock down restrictions that police were able to run the mobile office.
Sgt. Rehn said most of the officers who provide support in the Toowoomba Region were enforcing lockdown rules at the hotels part of the quarantine program is Brisbane.
He said a lot of the local force spent time down on the state border with New South Wales enforcing border closures.
“It wasn’t your officers based in smaller stations like Goombungee who were out of the region, but your support officers like the highway patrol team,” he said.
“Eleven out of sixteen of the Toowoomba highway patrol team were tied to covid operations out of the region.
This meant we had less resources to monitor traffic.”
Sgt. Rehn said as a result police didn’t have a public presence during the pandemic.
“It’s great to be back in the community and having a yarn with locals,” he said.
Sgt. Rehn said they have already had some heartwarming and helpful conversations, most notably with a lady which he said was quite emotional.
“We had a lady come to us who might not have gone into a police station,” he said.
Policing volunteer Johan Demmer said he has hopes of joining the police force.
He said that the mobile office is there to give community members information about what to do when they think a crime has been committed.
“We mainly give out information about theft,” he said.
“We also drop in flyers and talk with businesses to talk about robberies. “
