NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner has convened an urgent meeting to discuss upgrading security in the state’s hospitals after an ice-crazed patient allegedly attempted to shoot dead a police officer. Continue reading Calls To Increase Hospital Security After Police Officer Shot In Sydney Hospital
An ice-addled man who allegedly shot at police in a wild car chase continued his assault on them after his arrest, it has been alleged. Continue reading Methamphetamine-Fueled Police Chase Shooter In Court
Two men have been arrested after police found $4 million of ice in a car in Melbourne.
Police spotted a man acting suspiciously in a car in Cairnlea in the early hours of Wednesday and another man was under the rear of the car.
A search of the car found a 3.5kg package of ice worth $4 million and six mobile phones, and the men, aged 28 and 24, were arrested at the scene.
AAP
State Crime Command’s Organised Crime Squad together with the NSW Crime Commission has been investigating an alleged ‘ice’ (methylamphetamine) manufacturing operation at Greendale.
About 9.40am on Friday 21 August 2015, police arrested a 39-year-old South-Wentworthville man at Burwood and seized $30,000 from his vehicle.
A second man, aged 43 and from Greendale, was arrested at his home, with a search warrant conducted at the property a short time later.
A large-scale clandestine drug laboratory was located in a shed at the rear of the property and processed by officers from the Drug Squad’s specialist Chemical Operations Team.
The laboratory was inactive at the time of the search, but numerous chemicals and equipment used in the manufacture of prohibited drugs were located. Police also seized 15kg of ‘ice’ and more than half a kilogram of pseudoephedrine.
A Ruger-brand .22 rifle and silencer, as well as approximately 1000 rounds of ammunition, were located and seized.
Read the full announcement.
Up to half of offenders locked up are testing positive to methamphetamine use or admit they use the drug, police data has revealed.
As police are on the frontline of the ice epidemic, Australia’s largest and longest survey of police detainees across Australia has confirmed ice use is continuing to rise.
Continue reading Ice Epidemic Exposed: More Than Half of Sydney’s Criminals Use Methamphetamines
Dubbo, NSW. A methamphetamine-affected Grant Elton King smashed the police vehicle glass panel between him and police officers he was arrested by and made threats of violence against them as they drove to the station – but that wasn’t the end of his offences.
The next day when King, 36, was refused bail and despite being handcuffed with his arms behind him he stepped up on to the hand rail of the dock at the courthouse at Parkes and refused to get down.
Restraining him took four officers who resorted to using capsicum spray because King was aggressive and not compliant. The court was evacuated.
In Dubbo Local Court this month magistrate Philip Stewart sentenced King to a 21-month term of imprisonment with a non-parole period of 15 months for intimidating police.
Read more at Parkes Champion Post.
Editor: another example of why we need armed Police officers in courts, in every state and territory, and at all times.
More than 80 per cent of police feel vulnerable or at risk while on the job, a new survey has revealed.
Three quarters of respondents to the Police Association of Victoria’s Priority Policing Issues Survey listed drugs – ice in particular – as a key crime issue facing police today.
Some 83 per cent of the 3000 respondents to the union’s survey also said they believed current levels of substance abuse had made their job different than it was three years ago.
Five Mildura police officers faced months of health tests for Hepatitis and AIDS after restraining a man covered in his own blood in May.
Read more in Sunraysia Daily.
Victoria Police figures show an average 38 drivers a week were detected on the drug, a more than 30 per cent increase on 2013.
Overall, more than 3500 drug affected drivers were caught on the state’s roads in 2014, up almost 1000 in a year.
Victoria Police drug driving detections in 2014:
Total: 3501.
Read more in Herald Sun.
Police Minister Liza Harvey made the announcement on Sunday as part of the state government’s wider meth enforcement action plan that strives to stamp out the drug from WA streets.
WA has the highest methamphetamine use at 3.8 per cent of the population over the age of 14, compared to the national average of 2.1 per cent.
Ms Harvey said meth teams within the organised crime squad would also target drug dealers in metropolitan and regional WA.
WA Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan agreed that something had to be done to attack the “pathogen” which is “infecting” every part of the community.
Read more in The Australian.
Police have revealed the number of clandestine laboratories busted across Queensland has plummeted by 100 – or 27 per cent – in just two years, with most labs located being classified as “inactive”.
“The evidence suggests the labs were previously used to cook up illicit drugs and people have been storing them due to the availability of amphetamine-type substances,” the head of the state’s Drug and Serious Crime Group, detective Superintendent Jon Wacker said.
Last year, 279 illicit labs were detected across the state, compared with 379 in 2012.
Preliminary data suggests the trend is set to continue in 2015, with 121 labs busted so far at a rate of about 17 a month.
Read more in The Australian.
