Strike Force Trident Detective Senior Sergeant Dale Motter-Barnard alleges police were actively targeted by a group of kids in a stolen car in Darwin this morning

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We had spoken to Matt Cunningham a little bit earlier
this morning. He was around Casuarina Drive when this incident
had occurred where a car was allegedly stolen the Northern
Territory Police. They're apprehending that vehicle and joining me in
the studio right now is Strikeforce Trident's Detective Senior Sergeant
Dale Morter Barnard.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good morning to you, Dale, Morning Katie. How are you?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah? Good? Thanks so much for your time this morning, mate.
What happened this morning?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
It was a very busy night overnight in Darwin and
busy for us this morning. Basically we had a break
in occur in Fanny Bay. Two cars were stolen from
that One of those cars was later abandoned in Nightcliff,
but the second one continued on driving around. Just before
seven am a couple of our members who were looking
for that spot of that vehicle in Karama and then

(00:48):
from there it all sort of happened very quickly. The
intent of the person's in that vehicle was to ram
police cars and for the next half an hour until
it resolved in Nightcliffe, what took place was a series
of quite dangerous incidents where this vehicle was actively targeting
police vehicles trying to ran them, did successfully one ram

(01:09):
one vehicle before it was apprehended in Nightcliff.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
You are joking, So this car is actually going out
of its way to try and ram the police vehicles.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, that's correct. Crazy. It was definitely having a good
crack at it.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
How are those officers, Well, I.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Was involved in that as well. I was there firsthand.
We're all good. No one was injured.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
There are no injury sustained by any police, only minor
damage to one police vehicle and it all resolved quite well.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
In the end.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Or everyone's in custody from that stolen car and really
no injuries to any one.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Well, thank goodness for that, you know, thank goodness that
everybody is okay. But tell me, so, the vehicle was
stolen in Fanny Bay, it's then made its way. Well,
one of those vehicles was in Karama. It's ended up
then in Nightcliff by the sounds of it, or around
that area. Were they involved in other sort of break
ins or other crime, other crime over the night.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
So we're still investigating the extent of the spree. But
the same three offenders that we apprehended from that vehicle
we've identified were involved in a break in in Casuina,
another attempted break in at a business in close proximity
to the business in Casurina, another business in Fanny Bay,
and we believe they're also mixed up with several other

(02:21):
residential morphul entries or attempted on morphul entries in Fanny Bay.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
So it's quite an extensive spree. It's still emerging.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
We probably won't have a great idea until much later
on in the day far out.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
So you've now got three offenders in custody.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
What are their ages?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
One twelve year old and two thirteen year olds?

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Oh my goodness, Like that's mortifying to then think that
you've got kids of that age behind the vehicle, you know,
like behind the wheel of a vehicle trying to ram
police cars.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
It's very concerning for us as well, because this seems
to be an emerging trend with these guys, that this
becomes their intent when spot a police vehicle or when
we engage them to try and resolve these incidents, that
their intent has now shifted to targeting police.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
So you reckon they're actively trying to target you guys.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
It was very targeted this morning, Katie. That was quite
clear police vehicles that weren't even actively engaging them, that
were parked off to the side of the road.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
We're being targeted.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Look, how do you guys feel about that? In the
sense that you know, I understand you guys are all
part of the community, right. Look, I don't know whether
you've got kids, I don't know you know what your
family situation is, but you're like, you're active members of
the community. You're out there doing your jobs, and it
now feels like you are being targeted. And you've said
like you're actively being targeted by youths that are breaking

(03:43):
the law. That it's pretty worrying and frightening, right.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, it's very concerning for us. I mean, we're doing
everything we can to safely resolve these situations so that
no one does come to any sort of harm and
that there may be only minimal damage to property. But
these sorts of situations just make it so much more
difficult for us to resolve.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Do you have any idea whether these three children were
on bail.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
They're all on bail, Katie, they're.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
All on bail, all right. Well, Dale, I didn't really
think that I would be able to be stunned or
lost for words, to be honest with you, But that again,
people are going to be horrified hearing that, Like, how
often is this happening where you are apprehending youths that
are on bail far.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
More frequently than we would like.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Most of the time the youths were dealing with or
at least known to us if they're not on bail already.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Gee whiz, I mean twelve and thirteen as well, those
ages are really young. Like I've got kids that are
that age. They're so young, and they're so young to
be driving a vehicle, They're so young to be engaged
in this kind of stuff. I mean, the time of
the day that you're pulling them up should be the
time of the day that they're getting ready to go
for school.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, that's correct.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
I mean it was seven o'clock in the morning, when
there's the starting people are waking up, going on work,
traffic's increasing on the roads. The manner of driving, and
this vehicle was definitely presenting a threat to members of
the public as well as police.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
All right, So these three are in custody now, I
guess we wait and see whether the charges get later
exactly what goes on.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yeah, it's going to take us a good portion of
the day to finish investigating everything that they're involved in overnight.
We're pretty confident that it's not just these three involved
in the extent of the offending from overnight, So there'll
likely be some more that end up in custody, if
not today, in the next couple of days.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
So you think a bigger group.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, I've seen a little bit of CCTV footage just
before I came in here, and it's not just these
three involved.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Okay, do you think any of the kids are older
or any of the people involved or older or too.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
Good enough for it to be able to tell you
in great detail. But it's a bigger group than just
these three.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
I mean, look for a lot of our listeners this morning.
They may or may not realize that Strike Force Trident.
Like you guys are out there dealing with a lot
of the stuff that we hear about day to day,
right like a lot of those cars being stolen, a
lot of homes and businesses being broken into. It seems
like you guys have got a really busy job on
your hands.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
We are extremely busy.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
If it involves a stolen car or a break in,
there's a good chance at somewhere along the lines we'll
either take courage of it or we've already got courage
of it and are making the arrest and doing everything
we can.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Look, how often are these crimes being committed by.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
Youths Well, I looked at some numbers the other day
and sixty eight percent of our work is youth related
crime over the last year, since the start of the
financial year, so July last year, sixty eight percent of
our work so far as been youth related.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
That's a lot. And like, how young are we talking?

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Look, we don't deal with too many ten and eleven
year olds. Most of a probably core group of offenders
would be age thirteen and fourteen, with some fifteen year
olds thrown in the mix.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
You've also, like, over the last week or so, there's
been a lot that you guys have been called out to.
I mean that on Tuesday, as a sequence of events
that had unfolded across several suburbs. It resulted in the
arrest of four individuals. So that had been initiated in
Wallagi there was a car stolen, crashed at Meworhead. Those
suspects intentionally obstructed the road in Mewrehead. That one was

(07:15):
with the bicycle, So sorry, that was the week before,
So yeah, last week. This is an incident that mortified people. Right,
This bloke's gotten out of the car to move the
bike and he's been ambushed by a group of kids yep,
with a machete with a machete yep. Do you feel
as though some of these crimes are getting more violent

(07:37):
in nature, or that you know, knives and like edged
weapons are being used more often.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Look, in my time in Trident, which is now over
five years, I've definitely noticed a shift in the dynamics
of the offending. A lot of the youth that we're
dealing with the quite willing and do use violence now
to carry out whatever there it is that they're planning
on doing, whether it be stealing a car or stealing
a handbag or you know, robbing a service station and

(08:04):
things like that. The level of violence that they're willing
to use has certainly increased.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
It's like it's a worry. It's a worry for everybody.
And then I just think of you guys trying to
you know, in that separate incident, trying to apprehend those
kids this morning and they're ramming the police. It's it's
you know, like, it's horrible. Do you think that that
social media and sharing videos and stuff like, does that
have a part to play as well?

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Definitely.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
The youths that we're dealing with are all active on
social media. They all have Instagram accounts, TikTok accounts. They're
watching videos of this take place interstate where it's quite
common as well. You know that during this morning's incident,
they were filming the entire thing. I have no doubt
that at some point in time, if that wasn't live
stream to someone's account, that it will surface at a

(08:48):
later time. Yeah, it definitely, and then it encourages other
youths to engage in those sorts of behaviors as well.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, like it's horrible, it's horrible to think of what's
going on. Hey, I know as well. On Tuesday, this
is the other one where you guys had arrested four youths.
This one was in Eaten. By the look of it,
I think it was from a little earlier in the week,
on the twenty fifth. You know, you've got a ram raid.
It was in the Greater Darwin region. There's a number

(09:19):
of again four youths this time age thirteen fourteen charged.
But as I understand it, you guys are looking into
the entirety of that offending and identified a further six offenders,
so a big group of kids.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
Yeah, so seven of them have been dealt with now,
so we've arrested in charged seven of that group. We
did have intentions on looking for a further to you
today that are involved in it, but those plans have
obviously now change with what happened overnight. But we have
identified all ten that were involved in that. The investigation
is pretty much wrapped up. It's now just moving into

(09:52):
the next phase, which is locating everyone and putting them
before the court.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Well, Dale, mate, I really appreciate your time this morning.
I've no doubt that our list will appreciate your time
as well and appreciate the great work that you and
Strike Force Strident do. I know the Dog Squad is
heavily involved in a lot of the stuff that you
guys do as well, but it's the kind of crime
that's impacting territories every day, and you know, I know
that for the police, you're probably unless you're dealing with

(10:17):
people on that day. You probably don't hear it, but
we all appreciate that work and it must be difficult
then when you go to your job and you've got
people deliberately trying to harm you know you, whether they
think that it's going to wind up in a bad
crash or what exactly they think is going to go on,
it's horrible. It's horrible that people have to deal with that.

(10:37):
And you know, I think that the fact you're taking
these kids off the streets and hopefully as well to
keep the community safe is a really good thing. Thanks Katie,
thank you, thanks so much for your time.