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Gold Coast Cops chase under investigation

An internal investigation will review whether a car chase depicted on TEN's new factual series breached police pursuit policy.

2014-07-30_1134The number of stories TEN’s new factual Gold Coast Cops is generating so early into its life is a bit concerning.

The latest comes from Fairfax which reports a chase may have breached strict police pursuit policy, amid further analysis that the Rapid Action and Patrols Group is not the “elite” group the show claims it to be.

The Eyeworks production showed two officers from the RAP Group pursuing the driver of a stolen vehicle.

RAP began operating on May 1st and comprises 100 officers, but only two team leaders are former detectives, while 31 officers are new second-year Constables. Fairfax reports it has arrested 2070 offenders on 3051 charges between May 1 and September 29 this year. 43% were drug-related while 38% were traffic-related and 5% related to public nuisance offences.

RAP is required to report only to the Deputy Commissioner Brett Pointing under its governance model.

Bond University criminologist and former Gold Coast detective Dr Terry Goldsworthy told the newspaper, “They’re essentially all general duties officers. The only differentiation is that the RAP doesn’t get tied up on jobs, they’re much more proactive, whereas other general duties officers are reactive and clean-up the paperwork of the jobs that aren’t high priority, like traffic infringements [and] domestic violence cases.”

The group’s commander Superintendent Jim Keogh says the term “elite” has never been applied to RAP, despite it being used in relation to the show.

“No, no, no, no…we’ve never used the term elite,” he said.

“They’re certainly dedicated, they’re certainly professional and they’re certainly hard-working. If you want to put a brand name on them as being elite, well that’s up to the individual.”

3 Responses

  1. I was watching Gold Coast Cops and yes it did appear that police pursuit policy was not followed. In Victoria, when a police pursuit is “terminated” (as per direction of Comms or a senior police officer) all vehicles must deactive lights and sirens and come to a complete stop – this did not occur in that episode. To the critics however, police pursuits (well those in Vic) are governed by strict policies. Officers must notify Comms of a pursuit and inform supervisor of traffic conditions, speed, weather etc. Generally most pursuits are self-terminated by the officers for posing too great a risk to the public and the paperwork even for 1 second pursuits must be submitted.

  2. Where are all these coppers when you can travel the length of the M1 and never see one semi told to get the heck out of the right lane whilst holding up traffic?

  3. You hear about the dangers of drink driving so often, yet the dangers of police pursuits barely get a mention. So many pursuits have ended so tragically and usually it’s innocent motorist not involved with the pursuit in the first place that are injured or even killed. Pursuits are becoming more and more deadly and its about time the police thought with their brain not their ego when chasing criminals.

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