Matt Srhoj: Northland District Commander Superintendent discusses the extra police numbers needed to tackle violent crime

Extra police officers are being called to Northland to contend with a squeeze on resources from rising violent crime.  

In the past three months, 90 officers from across the country have been brought in to work five-week shifts.  

Northland District Commander Superintendent Matt Shroj says the region saw four homicides in quick succession, which was the tipping point.  

He told Mike Hosking that the district's been in a much better place with this extra support - but these are busy people, and they have their own areas to get back to. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now I got some trouble at north Police putting more
resources into Northland. We had a burst of violent crime.
Ninety officers currently being sent on five week rotation. Superintendent
to Matt. Sir Huey is the Northland District Commander and
as well as Matt, very good morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
You morning mate.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Is that the four homicides that's tipped you over resource wise?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah it was. I suppose it was the tipping point
for us, Mike. We had four on quite a quick succession.
They take up a huge amount of investigative resource.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
So that's the aftermath of the event and working through
the investigation, the paperwork, tidying it up, that's what would
suck you drive you didn't have the extra people coming
into the region.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, that's right, and we have to draw obviously our
investigative pulls from other inquiries that they're working on to
complete that. So you know, it's quite unusual to have
that many in such a short space of time, so
we put the call out. I think it's the real
blessing and advantage I think of having a national police force.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Given that is unusual. Does that mean this is kind
of a one off and you wouldn't expect it to
become a thing.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I certainly hope so, Mike, you know, there's obviously, you know,
no guarantees about some of these things. Some of these
things can be a bit random. But yeah, definitely, it
was definitely unusual.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Have you got a time frame when things can go
back to normal so to speak.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
It's, you know, we're in a much better space at
the moment over the last three months, with the support
we've had from around the country. It's, you know, given
us a chance to sort of, I suppose, get back
on top of things a little bit. We'd love it
to continue as long as it can, but you know,
obviously these are busy people that are giving up their

(01:52):
time and their districts are giving up their people to
come and support us. So at some point they've got
to get back to their place.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Well, good luck with it. Appreciate it very much, mets
So has the Northern District commanded.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
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