Posted on 04/03/2002 5:20:13 PM PST by Byron_the_Aussie
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia:
A special team of detectives will investigate armed hold-ups as new figures reveal that such robberies soared by more than a third in two years.
Four areas of Sydney have borne the brunt of the rise, which has been blamed largely on a heroin drought driving up prices and pushing addicts into more desperate robberies.
In Blacktown, armed robberies rose 138 per cent in the two years to last December. Also hard hit were St George-Sutherland, where the rise was 77 per cent; central western Sydney, taking in Auburn, Holroyd and Parramatta (64 per cent); and Canterbury-Bankstown (43 per cent).
The Police Minister, Michael Costa, responded by announcing the new armed robbery response team - but he insisted it would not be a reborn armed hold-up squad.
That unit, once home to some of the state's best, and most notorious, detectives, was disbanded in the early 1990s. It was discredited at the Wood Royal Commission as harbouring corruption.
"That's why we're not going back to the days of Blue Murder," Mr Costa said, referring to the ABC television drama on 1980s gangsters and corrupt police.
The jump in armed robberies was the main finding of the annual NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research figures. As the data was released yesterday:
· Senior Constable Glenn McEnallay, who was shot in the head and chest as he sat in his patrol car at Hillsdale eight days ago, died in Prince of Wales Hospital. Police recovered three handguns after he was shot.
· A woman was shot in the arm near a Fairfield ATM (automatic bank teller machine), the day after a patron was shot in a hold-up at the Diggers Club at North Bondi. The bureau's director, Don Weatherburn, said there was a significant increase in the availability of handguns, especially in Sydney's south-west.
"I think there's no doubt there are more handguns in circulation. But it's manifest not just in the firearm robbery category; it's manifest in the shoot with intent to do grievous bodily harm, or murder."
Rates in most crime categories were stable over the two years, but robberies with a firearm rose by 34.1 per cent across the state.
Fraud rose about 16 per cent and assaults by about 8 per cent, while sexual offences and acts of indecency fell 6 per cent and burglaries by 3 per cent. All other crimes, including murder, remained stable.
Mr Costa said "a core of experienced detectives and intelligence analysts" would help plan and co-ordinate operations against armed robbers. "Certainly, this is not an armed hold-up squad," he said.
But such a squad is exactly what the state needs, says the Opposition police spokesman, Andrew Tink.
"He's making it up as he goes," Mr Tink said of Mr Costa. "There's no point 'responding'. A response team is following, not leading; being reactive, not proactive."
Mr Tink acknowledged that special squads had caused problems in the past but that after years of reform the force should be able to form a corruption-resistant armed hold-up squad.
Dr Weatherburn attributed the armed robbery jump in the four areas to the heroin drought first noted between December 2000 and January 2001, saying that immediately after "you started getting higher levels of robbery with a firearm".
The Opposition Leader, John Brogden, meanwhile backed a plan to put police in 10 high schools considered most at risk of gang violence.
Lott: More Guns Less Crime
Gibbs: More Drugs Less Crime
Are these slums, middle-class suburbs, high-rent districts...?
Yeah.
Those poor 'desperate' addicts, who have been 'pushed' into shoving a gun into someone's face. And -quite often- pulling the trigger. You won't be surprised to hear, XM, that here in New South Wales junkies have been officially granted Victimhood Status and (despite posession of heroin being illegal) can inject themselves in government approved 'shooting galleries.'
They lied.
But to their credit, some of Australia's most high-profile gungrabbers are today acknowledging the gun lobby were right. John Laws, our Downunder version of Rush Limbaugh, has apparently undergone that conversion this week. The Greens and related socialist scum are of course still unrepentant. Here's today's press release from the Greens Party :
MEDIA RELEASE
3 April 2002
Handguns key to firearms offence rise
Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said today that the annual NSW Crime Statistics report shows both major parties should commit to a ban on handguns and tighter restrictions on other firearms.
Ms Rhiannon said, "The greatest rise in any crime category was robbery with a firearm, which rose 34.1% across the State.
"Handguns are the most concealable firearm, which is why they are the weapon of choice in violent robberies.
"The State is awash with handguns and the Government should immediately ban them.
"These statistics do not tell us how many robberies involved a handgun, but we know that their use is endemic.
"Previously published figures show that the use of handguns in firearm-related homicides rose almost threefold between 1996 and 1999.
"Last year there were over 642,000 registered firearms in NSW including 70,000 handguns," said Ms Rhiannon.
More information : Dan Cass 02 9230 3551
To get Greens media releases e-mailed, sign up at
www.us.altnews.com.au/greens/subscribe.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Cass
Advisor
Lee Rhiannon, MLC
The Australian Greens
Parliament of NSW
Tel: +61-2-9230 3551 Fax: +61-2-9230 3550
www.nsw.greens.org.au/lee
Shag? Fingers crossed that you forgot to add a sarcasm alert to this post????
No, mate. As you might have guessed they are areas which have seen a huge influx of Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants over the last decade or so. The 'police are seeking a man described as...' bulletins on the radio constantly mention these two racial descriptions. Peculiarly, South Pacific islanders are also regularly sought as suspects in violent crimes, with a frequency out of all proportion to their numbers in Sydney. It's a group of Islanders who have been charged with the shooting murder of a police officer, mentioned in the story.
Interesting that they make sure everyone knows the guns were recovered. Nothing about the shooter?
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