In briefs and feel good story

Now officially one year old, the Police Assistance Line has hit another major milestone – 1 million calls.

Providing Victorians with a new and convenient avenue to report non-urgent crimes, the Ballarat-based contact centre received its 1 millionth call in September.

Since its public launch on 1 July 2019, the service has not only processed thousands of crime reports, but also taken on new functions to assist the police response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

More than 135,000 calls have been received about possible public health order breaches alongside the most common crime types reported, including theft from motor vehicles, burglary, theft and property damage.

Assistant Commissioner Michael Grainger said the service was contributing to a more realistic picture of offending across the state by taking more than 2,000 calls per day.

“It’s never been easier for Victorians to report non-urgent crimes – many of which have traditionally gone unreported,” AC Grainger said.

“Our intention has always been to better serve our community by freeing up time for frontline police and, having taken more than 1 million calls, we’ve clearly made progress to do exactly that.”

The community can continue to report non-urgent crime and events by calling the Police Assistance Line on 131 444 or submitting an online report at police.vic.gov.au/palolr

Police at four major regional stations have commenced semi-automatic rifle training, ensuring they are equipped with the necessary skills to use the new weapons in response to critical incidents.

The training, which began in August, follows a decision by Victoria Police late last year to provide 300 semi-automatic rifles to be used by uniform and frontline support police in the event of active armed offender and terrorist attacks outside of Melbourne.

Police officers in Geelong, Ballarat, Morwell and Shepparton will be progressively trained to use the semi-automatic rifles, which have now been provided to local police but will only be operationally deployed to those who have completed the required training.

The semi-automatic rifles will be securely stored at the stations or in police vehicles and will generally not be in public sight.

More than 730 police officers of the rank of senior sergeant and below from the Public Order Response Team (PORT) and the four 24-hour regional uniform stations will undertake the training, which is expected to conclude at the end of 2021.

The four regional stations have been selected to ensure there is a strengthened response in key regional areas, while PORT has been selected to receive the semi-automatic rifles as it is a frontline support unit which can be deployed anywhere in Victoria in response to major events, issues and at high-risk times.

It’s not every day that the brave men and women of Victoria Police get a letter of thanks, but one addressed to one of the force’s four-legged employees is even rarer.

After appearing in a newspaper article about the work of the Victorian Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team (JACET), detective senior constables Jason Regan and Emma O'Rourke were thrilled to receive a letter of thanks from Valerie of Warrnambool.

“Our society is fortunate to have people like yourselves to safeguard the children,” Valerie wrote, acknowledging the work of the detectives whose job it is to identify, locate, and rescue child sexual abuse victims and prosecute the perpetrators.

The letter was also addressed to Champ, a three-year-old Labrador retriever assistance dog trained to detect heightened stress levels in the members of JACET and child abuse victims and provide them with a calming distraction.

“My spark of light (when reading the article) was Champ, what a source of comfort for you both and the children you deal with,” Valerie wrote.

You can read more about the work of JACET in this edition of Police Life on Page 26.

And yes, Champ is in the team photo.