Six-year-olds among 83 kids removed from Kimberley streets

Dozens of extra officers, drones, the K9 division and police air wing were deployed to Broome last week in a major crackdown on exploding youth crime.
WA’s top cop Chris Dawson told Gareth Parker on 6PR Breakfast Operation Regional Shield had removed 83 at-risk kids from the streets late at night last week, two of them as young as six, but there was much work to be done.
“The numbers of young people … who are being found on the streets, who are doing very, very dangerous and reckless crimes, that’s what we’re alleging, ramming police vehicles off the road, I’ve had four officers hospitalised,” he said.
“So we’ve put a lot of extra effort in there to arrest that sort of behaviour.”
Street crime was a focus, with burglaries dropping from 24 to 5 in Broome in a week.
“But what is an enduring concern is, last week police took off the street 83 young kids, 80 were Aboriginal, two were six-year-olds out there at 1-o-clock in the morning, 11 nine-year-olds.
“Then we’ve got other young ones who are videoing themselves, putting it on TikTok and seeing this as a game, it’s very sad, but we have to call it what it is, it’s criminal offending.”
Tap PLAY below to hear WA’s top cop discuss other issues.