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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now joining me live in the studio this morning, the
Acting Commander for the Darwin Region of the Northern Territory Police,
Sean Gill, Good morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
You morning, Katie. Beautiful cold day.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Oh it's lovely, isn't it. It's so nice to get
a bit of wet weather to cool things down a
little bit now. Unfortunately, it looks like it's been a
fairly busy week for you guys for a few days,
at least. Yesterday morning about nine twenty, Northern Territory Police
receiving reports that a male youth had allegedly assaulted two
men outside of business on Baldwin Drive in Woodroff. What

(00:33):
exactly happened there?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, Well, as you said, a male youth assaulted numerous persons,
Our sixty four year old who essentially was a bystander
and the seventy seven year old who was the owner
of the business. So one tried to intervene and help
and essentially both both got assaulted with that. So police
attended fairly quickly afterward and arrested a fifteen year old

(00:57):
person in relation to that. Obviously that's still under investigation.
But again, you know, I think I said it last
week it's just the level of assaults going on and
you know, people going about their business and trying to
help out.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, that's the thing, right nine twenty in the morning,
you wind up with this, you know, with a fifteen
year old then allegedly assaulting these two blokes, one of
them while he's in his place of work. It's it's
Frustrating's too light a word. I suppose it's quite infuriating.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
For a lot of people, absolutely and saying it as
are saying, and probably while I'm doing this job, we'll
be pushing as hard as we can to arrest anybody
in relation to this. And the good thing was there's
a good response with response by police, and we've got
a person in custody.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Sorry sort of went off. He hasn't been charged yet
or those charges are expected to happen today.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
So at this stage you're expecting to be charged. Yeah,
I don't have a time frame in front of him.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
No, that's all right, Hey, moving along, because there's unfortunately
there's been a few pretty violent sort of incidents. Now
one of those actually occurred on Wednesday last week in
our CBD. Now this is one that I've got a
few messages about in terms of people sort of being
in the CBD going to get money out and that
kind of thing and seeing the police there. Now effectively,

(02:11):
a twenty five year old man was arrested in relation
to what was described as a serious harm incident that
had occurred on Wednesday the twenty second. Can you give
us a bit of context what happens?

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, thanks Coatie. So, as you said on the twenty second,
about halfhaus six pm near the NAB building, there was
a large older there was an altercation between three people.
Essentially this is I'm all recorded on CCTV as well.
As a result of that this altercation, one person was
using a machete. One person as a result of that,

(02:46):
got some very significant injuries. If it wasn't for the
quick thinking of the local police and some bystanders, like
in terms of applying a tornic caner like this person
probably wouldn't survive.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
So wow, gives me.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
So some quick decisive action in terms of saving this
person's life. And you know, I have to command the
people who attended, I have to attend the bystanders, I
have to command the police are attendant because it was
outstanding in terms of saving his life. But then we have.
The second part is the investigation that followed afterwards. So interestingly,

(03:20):
there's been two people arrested for this now. So twenty
five year old was arrested in Catherine who was one
of the frienders. He's been charged with numerous offenses in cause,
including two extra cause serious harm. And a twenty eight
year old male was arrested yesterday and jingly, one of
the offenses was axed to cause serious harm. So we've
got two people in custody again you know, high level violence,

(03:44):
use of weapons and the like, as well some great
work done by local detectives to find them. As I
was saying, because one of them essentially disappeared to Catherine
as quick as he could.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Wow, Sean, do we know if they were known to
each other?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Look, I don't have that. As I say, I've seen
the CCTV. It's hard obviously to differentiate at the time.
But it's quite serious offending. And I'm saying I've said
it before there were some great response in otherwise we
would have had a fatality. I'm sure.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, right, So those people that were the first responders,
so bystanders and also obviously the police and the paramedics
turning up. Had they not, had they not responded in
the way that they did, this person could have ultimately died.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah, he had quite significant injuries as a result of this,
a significant amount of blood loss, you know, and the
resulted in local police having to turn up and apply
tornic cas and I like as well that sort of
gives an indication level of bleeding that was happening. Now.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
It must be difficult as well, you know for those
bystanders because quite often, you know, particularly when something frightening
is happening in front of you, you don't really know
what to do, and then to see somebody really injured
to step in and help that person, it's a big like,
it's a big call from those bystanders, I.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Look, absolutely, and the easiest thing to do is actually
do nothing, you know. And when people step up and
do something to save somebody's life, attempt to you know,
stop something serious, you know, it's all credit to them
and serve some recognition.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah. Well, and look, you know, by the sounds of it,
obviously a big shout out from us, I think that
that's an amazing thing to help out in those situations
and potentially save somebody's life. It is it's you know,
it's a huge thing to do. But I don't know
in these situations do the police sort of recommend people
for you know, for formal recognition. I know I've got

(05:26):
you on the spot there probably with that one. But
is it something that you know that people like that
you can do. Well.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
It's interesting you say that because from a senior executive
point of view, they're obviously very keen to to provide
some recognitions to the member involved. I was spoken to
him as well, Yeah, you know, he did a terrific job.
Again in terms of the severe and helping out. We
really didn't hear that untill later on. So I can
to try and find out how it is and then
give them some recognition as well. Probably can get that

(05:54):
through crime and the investigators. But I'm saying, but to
answer your question, yes, they of the recognition, and they're
saying I'm actually a bit of a hard marker and
I don't normally do it, but in these circumstances they
certainly need it.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah. Absolutely. Hey, just going across to another terrible incident
that we saw. This one was on Friday. It was
in out in the Northern suburbs. Now we saw a
situation here where a priest was allegedly will suffered multiple
facial injuries and conveyed to Royal Dahin Hospital, the initial

(06:30):
report saying that a person had attacked him with a pen.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
That's correct. Yeah, so I'm aware of I'm not aware
of the details. I understand that it's under investigation, and
I need to believe that. I think there has been
a person arrested in relation to this.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yes, I think they arrested him the following day at
Casarina Square by the look of it.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
But again, you know, like the most benign people in
the world getting attacked. I'm not sure the circumstances and
the like as well, but just goes to that level
of offending them that we just won't be standing for absolutely.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
And you know, like you think this is a priest
we're talking about who, from my understanding, setting up, you know,
for the service that's attached to that school there. Some
parents from that school have actually been in contact with
me and said, you know, Katie, we've been dealing with
anti social behavior in that area for some time. I'm sure,
and I know that while you're in this position of
commander and acting in this position You've said to me

(07:24):
that you you know, you want to really focus on
some of that anti social behavior that we're seeing. What
are you looking at doing?

Speaker 2 (07:32):
So I'm not I'm not a fan of the word
operations because that implies that there's an end state to this.
So I'm really keen and we're actually going to start
as of Thursday or Friday this week and anti social
behavior business as usual response. So essentially I want to
hit Darwin, Casarina and Palmerston all at the same time.

(07:53):
I want to see high visibility policing. Essentially, we've got
some Mariaginal liaison officers well helping out in terms of engagement.
But essentially, if there's offending going on, drinking, borish behavior,
essentially it won't be tolerated. I expect to be dealt with.
So I want to do because we have three major

(08:14):
areas under my commander and to make sure they all
get the equal amount of service. So having said that,
so we've got members from our Territory Safety Division, We've
got some members from our specialist support areas. We've got
general duties members who are allocated to this and they'll
be doing each one of those places. We're looking at
day shifts, We're looking at targeting the drivers of crime,

(08:36):
and most of the drivers of crime.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Is alcohol related.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
So alcohol related offending just won't be tolerated. And I'm
very keen to, you know, to see how this goes,
and I'll be driving them pretty hard to be honest.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
I mean, when you look at some of the incidents
that you and I have spoken about this morning, some
of that violent sort of offending that you see, how
often is alcohol a factor in you know, maybe stepping
away from the specifics of these, but how often is
alcohol a factor in the violent offending that the Northern
Territory Police say.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Look, I don't have the specific numbers in front of me,
but it's obviously a big contributor to a lot of
defending that goes on, particularly assaults and the like as well.
And there's plenty of evidence to suggest that, you know,
domestic violence, the causes of domestic violence and the like
as well is alcohol driven. So with that in mind

(09:28):
as saying, I'm probably going all in on this, but
I really want to go looking at day shifts and
just targeting the drivers of crime, which is a alcohol
you know, and the behavior that's associated with it as well,
the public intoxication, the offending and the like as well.
So I really want to say, I want to push

(09:51):
back again to say I'm not keen on the word operation,
and I really want to make sure that we have
a targeted, coordinator approach to this, and to that end,
I think I believe the police do this, but I'm
just more keen on the more coordinated. Yeah, a better
understanding of how we're going.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
So it's going to be a real focus for you.
Went like, is that kicking off like today? Friday? Friday kickoff?
And as you said, you don't want to call it
an operation because you don't really want people to think
there's an end date to it. You want it to
be happening, you know, all the time. But people need
to be aware if you're out, if you're out drinking
in public, or if you're out doing the wrong thing,

(10:26):
the police are going to be coming to have a
chat with you, by the sounds of.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
It, and absolutely, and if anybody knows me, knows my
negotiation skills aren't that great. So if you're committing offenses
and don't expect, you're.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Not going to get out of it fair enough.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
And that's what you got to be pushing to Ellen.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yeah, well, and look, I think that that's you know,
the public wants this kind of thing sorted out. Everybody's
pretty much had enough of the anti social behavior that
we see around the place, some of the drunken behavior
that we see around the place. And you know what
it then progresses to is I suppose what I was
getting at before is you know, sometimes you might see
people sitting around and you know, and having a drink,

(11:05):
but then later in the night that turns into fighting,
or it turns into at different times, it could a
domestic violence situation, all sorts of other things, and that
you're trying to deal with.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Absolutely, so, and that's what I really want to target.
And it's probably fair to point out that, like even
Casuarina last week they had an operation Operation Safer Homes
where they targeted public housing, public drink and the like
as well, you know, and they tipped that in the
order of three hundred leaders of alcohol. That was just
in four days. They moved on a lot of people,
They issued a lot of things about ten or twelve

(11:38):
band drinking orders as well, So there's a lot of
work going on. This is really a coordination piece, and
this is where I'll be really driving it.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, short term commander. Over the last week or so,
we've been talking quite a bit about Nightcliff and Coconut
Grove area because there has been this application sought by
Saint Vinnie's to extend you know, some of the services
that they've got there the next couple of years in
Coconut Grove and Nightcliffe. I don't know, you know, whether

(12:06):
you're in a position to say whether you support that extension,
but have you seen an increase in sort of anti
social behavior in any way over the recent months in
those areas.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Look, I just don't have a Dara in front of me,
so I'd be loath the comment of that because I
just don't know that's right because from my point of view,
you know, I'm looking at a Darwin, Casuarina, Palmerston. You know,
I'm really looking at a whole lot and just seeing
how we go from there. But you know, like it's
one of those things if we sit you know, it's

(12:42):
in the simplest of terms, you know, by be saying
if you see anything, you report it then and please
see it, then we'll deal with it.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah. Well, acting commander for the Darwin Region, Sean gil
really appreciate your time this morning. Thank you very much
for joining us on the Shy. Thank you Katie, thank
you
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