Mobile police station a rolling problem-solver

Counties Manukau's new Mobile Police Station (MPS) has already been put to extensive use, after becoming operational in the district in late January.

With Senior Sergeant Mick Woods as the Officer in Charge, the station’s brief is to attend and address specific problems in the district, based on strategic need and priority.

A long-time concept of District Commander, Superintendent Steve Shortland, the MPS was officially launched by Police Minister Hon. Annette King on 14 February at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the district.

By then, the Station had already been deployed to a number of operational hotspots, including the area around two fatal stabbings in Manurewa – providing high visibility patrolling and public reassurance.

“The whole idea behind it is for a mobile police station that we can deploy across the district in keeping with longer term crime and crash reduction and community problem solving techniques,” says Mick.

“We don’t just go in and do enforcement and quieten it down and move on... we’re a problem solving unit, although enforcement may be part of our tactical options.”

Mick heads up a team of 12, including himself, comprising a sergeant, five probationary constables and five Field Training Officers (FTOs).

The probationary constables receive one-on-one mentoring from the FTOs, gaining good problem-solving skills. Mick also helps them individually with specific policing tasks.

“We’re also able to offer operational support at major incidents. We did some searching for the CIB around the Clevedon homicide (the then unidentified woman’s body in the water)."

The MPS also attended the scene of the Othello Road, Ōtara, shooting.

“We were able to put a mobile police station into the heart of the community and deploy officers from there on foot patrol and in vehicles. We had comments on the day about how reassuring it was to see us.”

The station was also base to a three-week crackdown on juvenile prostitution – working alongside other support agencies – and attended Waitangi Day celebrations at Hayman Park where members of the public were impressed by the station and staff presence.

Problem solving deployments are determined by bids and tactical problem profiles put forward by work groups (e.g. CIB or traffic) to a district governance committee. The committee then agree what the station will deploy to, assessing the bid against the district business plan and other strict criteria.

“We’re very diverse in what we can do and what we offer, but we’re not just a box of police officers you can open up and get to… you have to put forward a pretty good business case.

“We’ll sit down with the ‘customer’ and work out some detail around the tactical problem profile menu, and then go out and actually do it.”

While the team may be called to a “hot potato” at a moment’s notice, they’re gearing up for further targeted deployments dealing with specific crime types and criminal families.

When on site, they will also take other complaints from the public, collate the information and either deal with it themselves or hand it over to the local area for follow-up.

“It’s early days, but I see there’s significantly more mileage in this in terms of it being 21st Century, cutting-edge policing,” says Mick.

“I think it’s the way forward. We go to the problem rather than the problem coming to us.”