Almost 3,000 frustrated residents have joined a local neighbourhood watch group to fight crime in Brisbane’s south, forcing police to launch a new covert operation to stop groups of thugs terrorising locals.
The Rochedale South Neighbourhood Crime Watchers group conducts three patrols a day after being formed six months ago in response to a series of break-ins, home invasions and robberies carried out by machete-wielding teenagers, including night patrols for the last month.
Queensland Police has now established an incident command centre and flying squad to tackle crime in Brisbane’s southern suburbs, and Police Minister Dan Purdie has admitted there has been a surge in offences, The Courier Mail reported.
Mr Purdie, who has been in the job since the state government came to power in December on a tough-on-crime platform, acknowledged more police were needed, but Queensland Police are suffering from a recruitment crisis like every other force around Australia.
Police have said the cultural background of the offenders is “largely irrelevant” to their investigations, but locals believe many have African, Pacific Islander and aboriginal backgrounds.
“From what can be seen of these criminals when they don’t have their faces covered, they appear to be Africans. How can this be so? It’s Brisbane. Not Capetown,” said one man in an online discussion about the crime wave.
The neighbourhood watch group was formed by local man Damion Douglass six months ago, describing it as a bunch of mums and dads that decided “if the police can’t, I will”.
“We started a little ambitious and I put some resources and money and time into it, it deserved it,” he said.
“There was so much happening around that time, and the straw that broke the camel’s back was a young boy mugged on his way home.”
Locals said the group, which coordinates using social media, was able to respond to incidents faster than police and track criminals in real-time as they moved through the streets.
One youth gang in particular has left a trail of destruction across the suburbs of Carindale, Rochedale South, Eagleby, Underwood and Manly West, breaking into homes, business and cars in broad daylight while clad in hoodies and balaclavas and wielding machetes.
Mr Douglass said his group had received a flurry of reports about the gang which had been passed on to police.
“The reports came from frightened residents at home with children, and they were also worried about walking their kids to school, and they wanted to know if it was going to be okay,” he told The Courier Mail.
“They were breaking into homes, walking down the street with machetes and one report of a steel metal bar.”
Queensland Police Service Detective Inspector Chris Knight said an investigation was underway into the crime wave, but said “the age, the cultural background, or any other factors that might be involved in this offending group is largely irrelevant to our investigation”.
Header image: Left, right, teen thugs caught on CCTV by locals in Brisbane.
