New teams up and going

For the past week local police have been doing things a little bit differently, with teams now allocated to a few suburbs, giving officers time to get to know their given area and its community.

Palmyra police LPT2 covers Willagee, Myaree and Melville and has already taken an active lead in getting out and about in the community.

Sergeant Gary Thwaites heads up the team of six, made up of some officers with many years experience, through to a new recruit with just four shifts under his belt.

Sgt Thwaites comes from both a general policing and specialist investigative background, with 10 years as a detective, including four in the child abuse squad, spending time in Rockingham, Fremantle and the South East Metropolitan District.

A police officer for 27 years, Sgt Thwaites has also spent time working in the country and two years at the Perth Watch House.

‘During the 10 years I spent as a detective, I dealt with numerous serious crimes and there is a certain professionalism that you have to bring to those cases,’ he said.

‘I’m happy that I can impart that to the junior officers on my team, but I’ve got a lot of faith in the guys I’ve got here.’

Sgt Thwaites said each of the suburbs the team looked after had their own problems.

‘Willagee has certainly got issues with drugs and anti-|social behaviour and we will be putting a heavy emphasis on drug dealers in the area,’ he said.

‘Myaree brings different concerns, with commercial premises often targeted.

‘We will go out there and chat to business owners and review their security to make sure they are good enough to help prevent burglaries.

‘Melville is pretty good overall but it’s not immune from crime, although of the three suburbs it has the least amount of crime.’

LPT2 is now on Twitter and regularly update followers on local information about crime.

‘We want to show our community that LPT2 is very proactive in what we do and we want to avail ourselves to the public,’ Sgt Thwaites said.