Manawatu Community Patrol volunteers are well-equipped and ready to assist following a training session with Police in Palmerston North.
As part of a combined prevention and training initiative, 16 Community Patrol volunteers, hailing from Himatangi, Feilding and Palmerston North, were deployed into the CBD.
After a classroom training session on communications and cordons, the volunteers were tasked to set cordons, identify a role-playing offender and give frontline staff regular updates on the offender’s direction of travel.
The well-trained volunteers ensured the offender didn’t slip through the cordons and was apprehended.
While the volunteers predominately work weekend evenings, they can work all hours of the day and night, prepared and eager to help with any real-life events.
The volunteers can assist with looking for missing people, cordons for stolen vehicles/burglaries/suspicious activity events, as well as mobile patrols in high crime areas, foot patrols in the CBD and crime prevention for big events or incidents.
Last weekend Palmerston North Community Patrol helped to locate a juvenile offender who fled after a pursuit. The volunteers took up cordon positions and recognised a person fitting the description of an offender. Police were notified and one of the offenders was arrested. This was a fantastic demonstration of cooperation between partners, says Constable Leanna Bloemendaal, of the Highbury CPC.