Targeting Drug Dealing
Media Conference, Winchester Police Centre
Deputy Chief Police Officer Commander Shane Connelly
Friday 26 August 2005
Shane Connelly: Look I want to welcome everyone here today, on this beautiful Canberra day. And I'd like to talk to you today if I could about some successes we're having though our Territories Investigation Group and our intelligence areas in relation to targeting drug activity in Civic and other nightclub areas around Canberra. So if I could start with I'd like to just run through some recent statistics for you and then I'll take questions. We've had a number of major operations in the last few months, particularly the last month. In one operation it involved the arrest of three males and approximately 200 ecstasy tablets and $1000 in cash seized. Another operation which was intelligence driven led to four ounces of amphetamine, 160 ecstasy tablets, $8000 in cash and some firearms seized. Another operation involved the arrest of two males, six ounces of methamphetamine, $25 000 in cash a small amount of cocaine and MDMA and two cars worth $25 000 seized. More recently in another matter involving the dealing of heroin at a public premises, three grams of heroin seized, hydroponics set up seized as a result of search warrants, which gives us just in those operations approximately $186 000 worth of drugs and $59 000 worth of assets. Now that's pretty much within the last month. These activities are all directed towards premises where the public may go to, to eat, have coffee or to consume alcohol, so they're mainly in licensed premises. I think it's important to say too that we're working with those premises, the industries involved in this are very pro-police being involved and working cooperatively; they don't want this activity going on in their premises and they're assisting us in every way. So that's the sort of activity that we're doing. It's something you won't see, something where police who don't wear uniform are involved, and it involves people from our surveillance areas, using a range of techniques which I won't go into and it delivers positive results for the community which get to court and that's the end game. I think it's necessary for us to show that there's a strategy here and that you've got your normal visual presence of police though use of our Beats police, who are on patrol in the Civic area and other areas of Canberra, then you've got your normal uniform patrols, but you have this other effort that goes on and it's largely unseen and you as the media see it when we get to court and it's reported there.
Journalist: How many police have been involved in this? I mean just with regards to the operations?
Shane Connelly: One operation in particular in the execution phase was 40 to 50 detectives - that's just the detectives. We have multiple search warrants being executed, we have the surveillance teams, I won't go into the numbers on that because of the methodology. Then we use other resources; we use people from our tactical area, from our SRS. We also use our Beats police. People don't realise that every day the Beats police who's out there talking to the community, there's a great source of intelligence to us and helps us direct our strategies so that we can really have a good solid look at this crime.
Journalist: Is there just one of these on each day?
Shane Connelly: One Beats patrol? No, they work a variety of shifts. The shifts are really oriented towards the volume time in terms of dealing with intoxicated persons and people who take drugs. Drugs and alcohol, well they're known to be a precursor for crime. So to attack crime it's very important to attack the precursors, particularly when they're combined. What you classically see in terms of drugs and alcohol abuse is overdoses and the tragic consequences of that, particularly deaths. You also see people becoming vulnerable to crime for that reason. But what we also see is people becoming prevalent to commit crime, be it for an addiction or because of the consequences of mixing alcohol and drugs - violent behaviour is a known consequence of various types of drug and alcohol abuse.
Journalist: Is there too much of that in Civic at the moment?
Shane Connelly: Look every capital city, every CBD has its centre of attractions and centre of entertainment. Canberra's an unusual city because it's actually diverse throughout the city. I don't think there's anything different in what we see in our city to any other city. What I do see is that we're proactively attacking this by attacking the precursors and we're doing it with the community. I think that's so important; there are 300 000-odd eyes and ears in Canberra, and what the community can tell us by using their mobile phone, through talking on Crime Stoppers, through making a triple 0 call in an emergency, is really important. There's no point in someone telling us a week after they've been assaulted that they were assaulted; we need to be there when they're assaulted, we need to get to our witnesses early and that's so important in any criminal investigation. But in answering your question, no I don't believe there's too much alcohol and drug abuse in Civic.
Journalist: Is there special about Civic which draws drug dealers there?
Shane Connelly: No. Civic is as I said a entertainment area where you've got a high density of licensed premises, and you've got a high density of restaurants and other places so, Civic attracts people. Drug dealers will always be attracted to where there's a potential good supply base. It doesn't matter Canberra's a very unusual town in the sense that Manuka all of a sudden can become the place where everyone wants to go, and of course drug dealers will naturally want to go to Manuka, if that's the case. It could be Kingston next month. It's not just Civic; to say that it's Civic really doesn't understand the supply and demand effects of drug supply; they'll go where there's a populous. And with this beautiful weather coming on, Canberrans tend to come out and start staying out a little bit later, it's not quite as cold. And so there are the subsequent effects of that. So they'll be where there's the potential supply and demand.
Journalist: It was suggested in court today that the bloke arrested yesterday, is not really a big fish, that the quantity of heroin he had means he is not a big dealer or the main agent.
Shane Connelly: Look I can't comment on that matter because it's a matter now before the court. What I can tell you is anybody who is supplying is an important fish to isolate. One person by the fact that there might be only 10 foils or 10 deals of heroin might means that's 10 deals today, but what did the person have at home yesterday, or a person have at home the day before? More importantly, who's that person associated to, who is he supplying and who is supplying him?
Journalist: That was my next question because police followed another man to his car and found drug paraphernalia all through the car; was that man arrested?
Shane Connelly: Look I can't, as I said I can't comment about a matter before the courts today and I won't. These are matters the courts can decide on; what I can tell you is that drug investigations are a big jigsaw puzzle. It's about following every lead, every step of the way and we've had many cases where we've started with a street dealer in Canberra and taken them right back to importers of heroin and other drugs, that's how it works. So we look at it both at the tactical level, in taking out the street supplier because they're going to harm someone, right through to the strategic importer and that's why we work so closely within our own organisation the Australian Federal Police to make sure that we can get back to that point.
Journalist: You mentioned before that drug dealers go wherever the people are; I understand there are increased patrols around Civic at the moment. Do police have intelligence that Civic is the place for drug dealers at the moment?
Shane Connelly: No, no look we have our increased patrols around Civic for a number of reasons. Alcohol is also a drug, and so if consumed within the laws and we talk about responsible use of alcohol and service of alcohol, then there are no problems. But alcohol and drugs or alcohol in isolation or drugs can cause anti-social environment behaviour, so to look at it specifically, from a point of view of the drug issue in isolation, would be wrong. Remember: this is a national drug strategy and this is all about supply reduction, and that's in all fields.
Journalist: Are police resources stretched within, keeping Civic covered and making these arrests?
Shane Connelly: No. We target our resources in terms of intelligence, and I mean there's no police force anywhere in the world that wouldn't say we'd like more resources, but the fact is, the police resources that we have we utilise cleverly, but we can only utilise them to a point. The best point is when we get information from the public because that helps us. It's how we set up and how we establish our targeting and that's why people making anonymous or non-anonymous calls to Crime Stoppers is so important to us. People observe things, just about everyone in the public has a private mobile phone now; if they're seeing violent behaviour they should ring the police on 131 444 because we need to get there.
Journalist: Getting public assistance - how is the investigation going with young Douglas?
Shane Connelly: Those investigations are progressing quite well. I have to be careful what I say; there have been some more developments in relation to those particular matters, but it would be premature for me to say what they are, but certainly they are proceeding well. But again, the earlier we can get to witnesses when someone is assaulted the better. This is important in any assault; if we can get to the witnesses at that time, then they are such a great assistance. There's no point in people ringing a radio station five days later and saying "I saw someone assaulted in Civic last Friday night or at Manuka or at Woden or Tuggeranong" - we need them to ring us that night.
Ends//