45 recidivist car thieves have been taken into custody but the job 'isn't done yet', say police

Watching on as the intelligence officer scrolled through the weekend's selected POI (persons of interest) on two large display screens, plain-clothes police officers - two plucked from each of the five police stations across the ACT - were preparing for another weekend of crime disruption with Operation Toric (Targeting Of Recidivists In Canberra).

In their T-shirts, trucker's caps, cargo pants and hoodies, the young Toric officers looked to all intents and purposes like they could be headed off-shift.

But with handcuff pouches, Glocks and Tasers strapped to their belts, discreet radio comms earpieces and black pelican boxes at their feet full of road spikes, nothing could be further from the truth.

In the carpark outside were their unmarked cars ready to roll.

Tucked away in their tactical caches was some useful new equipment such as small drones, mini-cameras and innocuous-looking triangular deflation devices that can be slipped almost unnoticed under a wheel so if the crooks think they've been rousted and decide to bolt, they won't get far.

Before each Toric shift, there's an intelligence briefing which lasts 20-30 minutes. Up comes the names and faces of the key POIs they want, the cars that have been stolen in the past 24 hours, locations of interest, and the rego plates which have recently been lifted.

Eyes in the room collectively rolled when the intel officer informed the group that a Nissan Navara was stolen from Casey early that morning after it was left with its engine running in the driveway.

Many of these Toric POIs are regulars on the ACT court lists, persistent bail breach offenders, and with a list of priors which would fill a police notebook. It's little surprise that breach of bail offences year to date in the ACT are running at an all-time high.

Some of the targets have recently served time and with nothing else to do during the COVID suspension of internal jail programs than take smuggled drugs and hone their craft from the old lags, have reemerged on the street with fresh skills and criminal ambitions.

Many are what the police describe as "polydrug" users who break into homes and rob people - even each other - to finance whatever drug they can get their hands on.

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And one of the most interesting revelations from the Toric intelligence-gathering is that many of the targets know each other.

On whiteboards inside the briefing room are drawn the spider's web of interconnections between the offenders, stolen cars and where they have been recovered, and locations of interest.

Police know this from the multiple "hits" - identifiers - on Toric targets which have emerged from DNA swabs of discarded items and stolen car surfaces like steering wheels and gear levers. Since an ACT court ruled these swabs as inadmissible evidence, instead it all goes back into the intelligence mix and the spider's web keeps growing.

Police data revealed that ACT has the highest rate of criminal recidivism in the country with 83 per cent of offences across the territory being committed by recidivist offenders.

Pressure had been steadily building through a number of very serious incidents in which Canberra's car thieves had become increasingly arrogant and contemptuous of police intervention.

More than two dozen police cars have been rammed since the start of the year - mostly before Operation Toric began in August. Stolen cars have been driven deliberately at officers, and in one case, an off-duty Traffic Operations member was tailed to his own home and harassed.

Fail to stop incidents were at an all-time high in the first half of the year and the utter disdain for public safety by offenders triggered awful incidents such as that which claimed the life of Matthew McLuckie, killed in a head-on crash with an offender in a stolen car being driven on the wrong side of Hindmarsh Drive back in May.

In neighbouring NSW, the enactment of Skye's Law in 2010 had brought about a dramatic change, with a maximum three-year penalty for first-time offenders deliberately fleeing police and driving in a dangerous manner.

In the ACT, "softer" penalties exist and the courts are treated like a revolving door.

Superintendent Richard Breiner, who has worked across a variety of policing roles including tactical operations and close personal protection, runs Operation Toric and said that about 6 per cent of offenders in the ACT were responsible for 40 per cent of offences.

"Stolen motor vehicles are enablers to just about any crime you can think of," Superintendent Breiner said.

"Residential and commercial burglary, robbery, theft; you name it, stealing cars is how these POIs make it happen."

And proving irrefutably there's no honour among thieves, some even steal stolen cars off each other.

"We've picked up offenders and asked them about a particular stolen car we know they had and they've told us: 'oh no, so-and-so ripped that car off me a few nights ago'," Superintendent Breiner said.

"It's like Uber for crooks."

Embarrassed by a huge spike in car thefts and related crimes from the start of the year which made Canberra, on a per capita basis, the car theft capital of the country, Commander of Operations Linda Champion wanted a counter-strategy which didn't fit the usual mould.

She saw Toric as not just an opportunity to target the rising car theft and inter-related crime but build capabilities and investigative skills within the police cohort which went outside the customary crime teams. The various districts also know who their habitual offenders are and those officers can add their own knowledge of how these offenders operate, feeding this into the intelligence mix.

The result is a blend of officers drawn from areas such as traffic operations and general duties, interlinked with covert surveillance, backed by tactical operations, supported by the radio operations team, and with real-time intelligence feedback.

"In here at night, the intel phones are pinging constantly with messages; we're checking rego plates during drive-bys, following up ANPR [automatic number plate recognition] hits, and shifting our strategy accordingly," Superintendent Breiner said.

"Our strategies in how we apprehend these offenders will vary according to that intelligence.

"We know that there is a cohort of these known, recidivist offenders who will behave aggressively toward police. They drive at our officers. They crash into police cars. Anything they can do to escape arrest.

"So when we target these people, it has to be done carefully to minimise the risks to our people."

The police tactics are working well.

Since August 1, 45 people have been taken into custody by Operation Toric members and these offenders have faced more than 136 charges.

But the work isn't over.

"How long will we keep this [operation] going? Until we see a significant shift in the statistics," he said.

"Yes, we have had to turn some operational things off to make this [operation] happen but we also know that the results we are getting are having an impact on reducing all types of serious crime across the ACT. That's lifted the burden off our GDs [general duties] members and allowed them to get back to doing more business as usual."

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