Policy not to pull detectives off serious investigations

The Assistant Police Commissioner for Crime Reduction and Public Safety, Peter Marshall, rejects allegations that members of the CIB may have been pulled off active and serious investigations to carry out traffic duties.

Assistant Commissioner Marshall said that any such suggestions do not make sense and are not supported in any shape or form by the Office of the Commissioner.

"Detectives do a lot of travelling and are expected to intervene in traffic incidents, just as it is expected that staff on dedicated traffic duties will intervene if they come across other criminal offending.

"We are all sworn police officers. I've been a member of the CIB for 25 years and have been in my current role for the last year. The redirection of CIB personnel from active and significant criminal investigations to traffic duties has not occurred to my knowledge and I would be very concerned if it was happening.

"The policing environment is such that we deal with everything from traffic and general offending to homicides and other issues like electronic crime.

"Policing for traffic is certainly important and it is one of our priorities. District Commanders have the responsibility for deploying their staff to best effect in order to meet their obligations to police the whole spectrum of criminal offending. From time to time there may be one-off special deployments involving staff across all units but this would be rare and would certainly not involve pulling staff off significant and active inquiry work," Mr Marshall said.

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