Ep 17 - Kings Park Arson Investigation

Episode 17 of WA Police Confidential! The official WA Police Force Podcast.

On this week’s show:

- Reality Star and Police Sergeant Taz Etto returns to present this week's Takedown of the Year candidates! 

- Senior Constable Josh Gammon-Carson talks us through the rescue of 8 people and 1 dog!

- Inside the fire that caused the evacuation of a West Coast Eagle's wedding with Detective A/Sergeant Adrian Yates!

- Another rescue with Inspector Mark Tobiassen.

Transcript

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This podcast discusses real-life crimes and law enforcement matters. It may include detailed descriptions of criminal activity, traumatic incidents, and other content that could be confronting or distressing, particularly for victim survivors. Listener discretion is advised. If you find any of these topics upsetting, please consider whether this content is right for you and seek support if needed. You're listening to another episode of WA Police Confidential, the official podcast of the Western Australia Police Force. I'm Claire Sienta. And I'm Sergeant Nate Gilmore. Claire, we've got a big episode ahead this week, don't we? We sure do. Officers race against the clock and the weather over the weekend to find a missing 11-year-old boy. The officer in charge of that operation will take us behind the scenes a little later in this episode. Cut off, stranded, and running out of supplies. How police launched an urgent air rescue to save nine lives. And no, Claire, it wasn't a cat, but there was a dog involved. Stay tuned for that story later. And one of the longest sentences handed down for a spate of deliberately lit fires in some of Perth's most iconic locations will unpack that arson investigation. And the smoking gun isn't necessarily what you may think. We've also got Taz Edo back for the final rundown of Takedown of the Year People's Choice Award. Claire, you're going to take us through what's happening in the news later this week as well. Sure will. Any guesses on which unit is older than the WA Police Force itself? We don't have a history unit, do we? No, but this one, stay tuned for. We'll let you in on the answer and a whole lot more coming up in this week's episode. Claire, are you ready? I sure am. Let's get into it. This is WA Police Confidential. You're listening to WA Police Confidential. In WA, the sound of Serenity is a summer's day which can change in an instant. Helicopters overhead, sirens in the distance, and smoke filling the sky. As firefighters battle the flames, another team is preparing a search for answers, investigating on how these fires start and who's responsible. Today we're joined by Detective Senior Constable Adrian Yates from the Arson Squad. Adrian, welcome. Thanks for having me on today. You would have had a super interesting summer, I believe, with Strike Force Vulcan. Uh yes, we did. We always have um you know bushfires as as a daily occurrence, sometimes multiple bushfires, um, and they can range from you know smaller bushfires in out in the suburbs to, you know, larger scale multi-agency response bushfires, um, which can you know cause a significant risk to lives and also to um you know people's homes and um crops and stock and um a whole range of um infrastructure. So how busy was 2025-26 for you guys? Yeah, so I think we had um, you know, every year we have in excess of over 600 fires. Wow. That's huge. That um I mean naturally we we don't get to all of them, um, but you know, there'd be over 600 reported every every season. Obviously the season runs from um November uh through to March or April the following year, but we have a proactive team uh working between December and March um every season. Um but we're recording information statistics before that because uh Perth you know being a hot, dry climate will invariably start with bushfires in October and sometimes they'll go through till till May the following year. Um so yeah, as I said, there's normally more than 600 fires, sometimes uh upwards of 800. I've done seasons where we've done more than 800 fires. That's incredible. So yeah, there's a significant volume of work that uh gets generated from from bushfires for sure. And I believe you had uh one particular result we're gonna discuss um that happened quite close to here up in uh King's Park. What can you tell us about that? Yeah, so um recently, well not recently, yeah, in the last couple of years, um there was a uh a well, there was a significant bushfire in King's Park, um, and that was in October. Um and I happened to be working that day, and um I remember getting the call about the fire, um, jumped in the car, headed up the hill towards King Park, and I could just see the the plum of smoke. Oh no. Um and this is in October, and I thought, wow, this is this is not not good for the you know, we're only very early in the season. Um headed up the hill, got to the park, it was quite a significant fire. Um and then after a while we'd done our investigation and we'd found there'd been another couple of two smaller fires within the park um at the same time. So instead of dealing with one fire, we were dealing with three fires. Umfortunately the two other fires were were smaller and they were extinguished pretty quickly. Um but then the third fire was a a major fire which caused a lot of damage to the um you know to the vegetation in the park. Do you know when you rock up to these jobs and and you get that call, you like you said, you drive up the hill, see all the smoke, do you get a sense of whether or not there it's something that you're really dealing with, someone who's a a serial arsonist and someone who has lit all these three fires, do you know that immediately, or is that something that you have to unpack as you as you arrive? Yeah, so um if we know it's an area we've been uh that's been targeted recently and or there might be somebody in there that we know that lives there, you know, our first consideration is you know, is it is a person responsible? Um, but just in terms of visual cues, if you can look at a um a fi an area and look at it and see there's like distinct columns of smoke in separate areas, suddenly your mind turns towards, well, I'm probably looking at some deliberate fires here because naturally the way a fire will burn will, you know, you'll have that specific smoke column which you know comes from the fire. Um, and unless you know the wind's going in the same direction, um it's more than likely that you're dealing with multiple fires and you're dealing with some one or something that might have caused those multiple ignitions. And and something like this, you know, it's such an icon of Perth, King's Park, everyone knows it. Most people have been there. Um how devastating is as a, you know, you're a you're a human being as well who lives in Perth, I assume. So um, you know, when you see something like this at the hands of you know, someone who's responsible for creating this destruction, how does that make you feel when you arrive? Yeah, um, you know, so for me, ultimately um my concern is to make sure that there's nobody in the park and everybody's, you know, safe. Um, and then, you know, once I'm confident of that, then you know, turn towards relying on um the firefighters there just to um try and mitigate any sort of risk to people's homes. So going back to the this is the King's Park fire, you've you've rocked up, what what what happens next? So about half an hour before the Major King's Park fire, there was a a verge fire over the other side in Netherlands. Um we investigated that um because we thought there may have been a connection. Um so we got some CCTV of that particular fire and we identified a particular person wearing some distinctive clothing. Um and then we sort of delved into that a little bit more um and then we used other CCTV between that initial fire and Winthrop Ave and Ch and Sir Charles Garner Hospital to track this person's movements. And we ended up tracking their movements into the park where the initial first two fires were um ignited. So from there uh we did a general call for information from the public. Um and as I said, typically this is you know strange activity, people with mobile phone footage, dash cam footage. Yeah, so then we uh in regards to the park on that particular day, um there was a person that was driving through the park and they had their dash cam on. And um fortunately for us, they managed to capture this particular person that we're looking at on their dash cam right where right sort of in the vicinity of where the major fire started. That's a pretty big breakthrough when when it comes to um solving something like this and identifying who that person is. Um you have this CCTV, you've linked him to another fire in Netherlands, and this um, you know, this unfolding bushfire in King's Park. Where do you go from there? You've got you've got all this evidence, you've got you're gathering this evidence. Where to from there? So while I'm there in the park and I'm looking at all the information, I'm then attending all these scenes, I'm then going, yep, I'm satisfied that these fires are all deliberately lit. And then so now I'm dealing with multiple fires in King's Park, one in the Netherlands, and then a person that's you know within the vicinity of these fires at the time they're caused. Then we put all of our um investigative resources and effort into trying to find this particular person um and getting information out there which might be able to identify them and ultimately um you know, if there's enough evidence to arrest them and um question them about their potential involvement. So you ended up getting another breakthrough um in a way where he uh this particular individual was spotted by an off-duty police officer. A few days later there was a fire um in j along the bushland next to Jacob's ladder, which uh for most sort of people that are familiar to Perth, it's a very steep um series of steps that runs up alongside West Perth up the hill. On this particular day there was a fire then I distinctly remember the massive plume of smoke like right up next to these um buildings. And at one stage you could actually there was some vision, and I think one of the media outlets captured it of the fire literally heading straight up towards one of the big towers. Um so again, we were dealing with quite a significant um serious fire which might have caused some damage to how you know very expensive apartments and houses in that in that area. Um we captured some CCTV um from a building nearby at the base of Jacob's ladder. Um and lo and behold, this person who we had sort of identified from the King's Park series of fires had suddenly appeared again um at Jacob's ladder. Um and then we sent it out internally amongst our police officers. Um somebody got back to us and said, I think it might be this person. Um and then once we had that information then we we then put out a broader white car uh sorry, a wider broadcast to all of our people. Um and there was an officer who had finished his shift that particular day and he was I think it believed he was heading home or or he was in the area at the time. Um and he had seen the broadcast and then he'd seen this person and naturally his mind went, That's him. Um as all good police officers do, working around. Do you know what? We're never off duty, we're never switching off, do we? That's right. We don't switch off. Even when we try to switch off, we we still switch on the minute we like this is like an alarm bell goes off. Um a local police car was sent there immediately, and um that this person was um fortunately apprehended. Um, I believe it's on Mount Spay Road, so not far away from where Jacob's ladder is. Um and then yeah, so then he was he was arrested. Um he was interviewed by detectives from our office. Um and once we'd sort of done a big review of the King's Park fires and obviously the fire that had happened at Jacob's Ladder that day, um a decision made that we had sufficient evidence to charge him. So he was subsequently charged with uh, I believe about five separate fires. So the three in King's Park, um, the one in Netherlands and then the one at Jacob's Ladder. Just when we thought we had this person sort of you know done and we're we're happy to tick all the boxes. Ticked all the boxes, yeah, and the job was you know over and we're now to turn our minds to the prox prosecution. Um uh about a week before the Major King's Park fire, there was a um a significant fire in Bowl Park about 8 30 in the evening. I think it was a Sunday night. Um and it caused the park to be evacuated. Uh there was a a wedding on at the time. I believe it was a former West Coast Eagles players' wedding. Yes, it was. It was um that kind of made the news that uh around that time. Yeah, it certainly did. Um so he's his um wedding guests were all told to evacuate Bowl Park. And the following day I went out to Bowl Park and investigated the fire scene and tried to look for the c the cause of it. Um through the park there was a a tr just a normal walking trail. And I could see where this person had gone along with the trail walking. When I got towards the end of one of the trails, um I found a roll of paper tower which had been partially burned and left in the bush. So I could see that what had happened is the likely scenario was this person had lit the roll of paper, put it in the the bush, hoping that that area would then burn. And of course the paper tower would get burnt with it. Um unfortunately the paper tower did not completely burn. So for us this was what you know, really uh a bit of a a lucky break or a win for us, because quite often paper just gets consumed with bushflies and like you said earlier, physical evidence is pretty much destroyed once once a fire burns through, or even our friends at the fire department decide to pour water over everything. Yeah, so normally a paper towel will just be turned into ash and you know we wouldn't even do anything with it. Um we seized that um we sent it off to the Path West for DNA analysis, and then of course, you know, we're waiting eight, ten weeks for the result to come back. Um and just by pure coincidence, about the week after we um had apprehended this person for the King's Park fire, um that particular person's DNA matched to the paper towel that we obtained from the walking trail within Bald Park, um which was really great for us because one, we could solve the fire in Bald Park, um and two that evidence really helped the strength of our case that we had against this particular person for the fires in King's Park and along Jack Platter. It's pretty damning evidence, isn't it? Yeah, so that was that was really important. You could say it's not the smoking gun, rather it's the smoking paper towel. Yeah, well that's yeah. Yeah. Um and and I've attended hundreds of bushfires, um, and you know, to have something like that it was was just really, really lucky because quite often you don't find any you might find an incendiary device every now and then, but then to have that item there and still intact was um it was just you know gold really for for us. And again, you know, it in the end it actually proved it's worth it to us. Outstanding. So we um we progressed to trial and it all went through court. What was the ultimate outcome in the end? Yeah, so um once we disclosed the evidence that we had um pleaded guilty to um the serious um arson offences, criminal damage by fire, multiple counts. Um and he was sentenced to eight years, I think I believe it was it might have been just a touch over eight years imprisonment. Yeah, right, which is probably in my experience, uh one of, if not the most significant penalty I've seen the court impose for a bushfire arson offence. Um bearing in mind it was multiple, and obviously one of those fires was King's Park too. Yeah. Yeah, significant sentence for a significant series of bushfires, so fittingly so. Yeah, absolutely. Well, hopefully that sends a message to the rest of those in the community that think they can get away with this sort of uh behaviour um threatening property and lives and and um lighting fires so recklessly. So um, yeah, the work that yourself and your team at the Arson Squad does is, you know, is is acknowledged and we thank you um for for everything you do. And um, yeah, look if anyone has any information about Arson, what can they do? Um yeah, so they can always ring crime stoppers, um, you know, they can ring their local police station, um, you know, they could call our office, uh, but I I don't think our office number actually appears on any um public websites. But um, you know, the the probably so the most important thing is to no matter how small you think the information might be or um what you think you might have captured if it's you know, even if you don't think it's nothing, is just to like make it be known to crime stoppers or to your local police station um so it gets back to us at the Arson Squad. Importantly, if you see something, say something, if you capture it on Dash Cam or your home footage or whatever, retain it and uh when the appeal goes out, please help these guys to bring these offenders to justice. Um Adrian, thanks once again, really appreciate it, and uh yeah, we'll check in with you some other time. Great, thanks for having me. This is WA Police Confidential. You're listening to WA Police Confidential. Eight people and a dog. Stranded by rising tides at Lake Clifton over the weekend, they were cut off from the mainland and running out of time. What followed was a high-risk aerial rescue in extreme weather. The WA Police airwing crews battled winds of over fifty knots to bring them to safety. Today we're joined by Tactical Flight Officer Josh Gammon Carson to tell us more. Josh, you're wearing your uh overalls, you're you're straight from the helicopter or on my way to work actually, so um yeah, on an afternoon shift today. Um so yeah, getting stuck into it nice and early. What does a tactical flight officer do, just for those who aren't aware? Uh so our role is fairly diverse. Um we do everything from uh surveillance uh to rescues uh where the voice that you hear for um the car chases you see on the news. Uh we do all kinds of things. And and on that note, you mentioned rescues. This this rescue that happened at Lake Clifton over the weekend. You were involved with that. Yes. What can you tell us what happened? Um well it was um obviously the weather was uh pretty bad over the weekend. Um there were lots of uh warnings uh leading up to it. Um we were probably expecting a fairly slow day in the office. Uh there wasn't it's not really uh weather conducive to flying aircraft. Um but you know, in saying that, we're always ready to go um and we will assess every job and and if we can go we will. Um and then we saw this job pop through uh and sort of reading it, uh, it looked like this group were were in a bit of strife. Um they'd um gone down to Lake Clifton and they'd sort of got themselves onto a track um and with the the tides and the storm surges, um the way the job read, that they'd sort of got cut off um and and were stranded. And uh it's not that Lake Clifton is super remote, um, but obviously it's all four drive tracks um to get in and out of there. Um so we got the crew together, um the pilot, um and the other tactical flight officers, uh Jared Pearsall and myself, um, we went through what the weather was doing at that time um and had a look at what the weather was like down south. Um and we decided that we'd at least give it a go. Um we obviously the weather was okay for us to to depart. Um but we'll always um when we sort of do I guess the the briefings before we go for a a job or a flight, um all of our uh I guess words are are equal or our all of our um like calls are equal. So if if any of us at any time decide that it's too dangerous, um we'll pull the pin. Okay, so it's a it's a it's a consensus with the crew? Absolutely, whether it's safe. Yeah, definitely, definitely. Um and and we we discuss that for for every flight, um, you know, no matter what um the the job is. Um so I guess on this occasion we we decided we're all happy to to go. Um so we did um and pulled the helicopter out, and just as we were sort of starting off and and going to take off, a pretty significant weather front came through, so it sort of held us on the ground for a little while. And yeah, it got airborne. Um we knew that dwelling up in Pinjara police were on their way uh response, so lights and sirens to to the area. Um and we were sort of hoping that maybe that they could get in first, because obviously the the safest um thing would be for a a car to obviously get to them or lead them out um rather than obviously a helicopter coming and and either we land or or we we hoist or or whatever. So ideally we're hoping that they'd get there first, um, but in any instance we're gonna Ahead there anyway to assist where we could. We got airborne and it was pretty rough in the air. It was sort of dodging weather fronts as we were heading down south. Lots of wind, pretty significant wind. I think at one point we were sort of going at about 30 degrees to our direction of travel, which sort of gives you an idea of how much wind we were copping from the side. Got down there and the first thing we saw was three cars sort of parked up. And where they were, they weren't actually on the beach. They were sort of just behind the first sand dune back. So we weren't 100% sure because they weren't really, didn't look like they were in danger. The way that we sort of read it the job initially was that they were on the beach and that they were stuck and that you know recovery was out the window. So we sort of did a bit of a patrol around. I mean, there were obviously weren't a lot of people camping, um, or there were no other people camping. It's pretty rough the weekend to go camping because it wasn't on the pick of the punch. Yeah. Um so we did uh um we just did a bit of a uh a couple of orbits just to have a look and see in the area because we had their Latin long that they'd given us, and that was pretty much where these cars were, um, but just to make sure. Uh and we ended up finding another car probably about 500 metres to the south, and that was sort of half off of a track, um, and there was someone sort of running to it. Um so we had a look and we chucked our camera on that. Person went to that car and then ran back. So we sort of worked out that they were all linked. So they're now sort of uh we're trying to work out, okay, well, they're not in immediate danger where they are, um, so why have they called us? And we did a bit of a uh a scope around the the immediate area and we worked out obviously that where they'd come from was cut off by the ocean and they didn't have any way out. Um so that's obviously we would go, okay, that's why they've called us. Um and that gave us um obviously an idea that the police also couldn't get in because if they couldn't get out, police cars can't get in. And I believe on the job they they'd actually exhausted all of their food, their water, their fuel, and they were down to like, you know, four percent battery on their phone. Yeah, so after we we end up going down and speaking to them, they they'd done I mean, maybe other than the just deciding to go camping last weekend, um, they'd done all the right things. They'd um they were trying to find their own way out from uh eight o'clock in the morning, and I think they probably would have been okay. Um but after sort of getting down and speaking to them, the night that they'd spent previously, so on the the Saturday night, they'd copped a lot of um that significant weather as well. And what had happened is the wind and the rain had sort of seeped through their the canvas on their rooftop tents and and their swags, so all of their clothes and everything was just wet. So while they weren't in danger then, hypothermia would become a risk if they'd stayed. Um I mean if they wanted to stay, I mean we probably wouldn't have forced them to be to be fair. Um but I think they were ready to to go home and have a nice hot shower. And so you you arrive, you see them, you figure out that there's no way the ground crews can get in, so it's up to you guys. What do you do from there? Because it's a pretty big operation saving eight people and a dog, I'd imagine. Yeah, for sure. So um like I said before, the um we kind of work out what we're gonna do based on, I guess, risk. So the safest thing is for someone to get to them and they you know drive out, walk out, whatever by ground. That was out the window because the roads are all cut off. Um we we wouldn't hoist, um, so use the winch of the helicopter. We wouldn't do that unless we absolutely had to. That's probably the obviously the riskiest operation we can do. Um, but where they were, um, it was quite a big um patch of of sand behind the sand dune. So we had a a good landing area. Um and it if we had to, we even have the ability to come down low and hover, and we can jump out, you know, a foot off the ground. Um we call that hover and planing, deplaning. But luckily this was pretty good. Um I guess the rain probably helped a bit and it wasn't there wasn't a heap of sand blowing around um because it was a bit wet. Um so I've jumped out and walked 40 metres or so to the people and had a chat to them. Um obviously they said what had happened. Uh the car that we'd seen down on the track um that had uh mechanical issue, and they were actually trying to tow that out. Um they'd been all the way to the end of that track and worked out that there were boulders put across it, obviously by the local council, I guess, to stop people from getting in that way. Um where they'd come from was further down the beach where you could actually get onto the beach. Um so had a chat to them and worked out what we're gonna do. Um and all this time I've always got communications with the helicopter from portable radios. Um so they can sort of hear the conversation I'm having as well. Uh worked out obviously who was there um and the dog. The dog sort of proved to be a bit of a challenge later. Um but we worked out that where they were was probably only a couple of kilometers directly west from the Lake Clifton Tavern. Um and there's actually an old, um, probably fairly unused airstrip at front of the tavern, um, which is, I mean, I guess irrelevant for a helicopter, but it gives us a bit of a landing area. Um we've jumped on the radio and told the Pinjara and Dwelling Up police, head there, we'll start ferrying people there, and you guys can meet them there, um, take them off our hands and grab details. Um, I guess the other important thing is none of them were injured, they were just stuck, really. Um so they just needed to get out and then they could organise to get their cars out at another time. So so we did um we ferried them out three at a time. I stayed on the ground just so we could get them out as quick as possible. Um so flight went off with three. Um they were only gone for 10 minutes. Um it was a pretty short hop um to drop them off. Um came back, grabbed the other three, and then we um we grabbed the two and the dog last. Um the issues that we have with dogs is obviously we don't know how dogs are going to react to a helicopter. They're pretty loud, there's a lot going on, it's real windy. Uh so what dog was it? We got it, we got our sacks. It was a little um it was uh well little medium-sized um bulldog called Lola. Okay. And uh we've got um we have a um it's called a child child restraint capsule. It's it's like a bag, sort of, which we can use if we have a child that we need to hoist up into the helicopter. Um and that became, I guess, a a bit of a dog capsule. I've seen the vision. It kind of it's like you know, when you see the celebrities with their dogs in a bag, but this is more tactical. It's um and it's it's um it's got sort of mesh over the top, so um, you know, it you can the air can get in and they can breathe. Um so I still can't imagine it would have been the best time for poor old Lola. Um but she did well. Um, I mean the weather was horrific. It was like uh that night when I had a shower, I had sand in my hair, sand in my nose, sand in my ears, like sand in my eyes, like it was everywhere. Um so and these guys have been there all day, so it was um yeah, they they were ready to get out. Um but yeah, pick grabbed Lola, um, put her in the bag. It sounds a lot worse than it probably was, but but she was okay um and carried her, and she's you know, being a a bulldog, it was just a big ball of muscle, so it's just pretty heavy walking through the sand carrying a bag full of of uh bulldog. Um that's not part of the uh entrance exam for air wings. No, is it not always heavy? We do a six-monthly fitness test, um, and part of that we carry a backpack and a stretcher. Um and I I sort of jumped on the radio when I was walking back and I was probably breathing pretty heavy, and I said, No, this is obviously why we do our fitness tests, isn't it? Guys in the helicopter were laughing who were just watching me, you know, trudge through the sand. Um but yeah, they chuck Lola well, put Lowell in helicopter, we didn't chuck her in. Uh and uh and the last two and and off we went. And uh so the the way the bag works is it sort of zips closed and then it clips shut. And sort of halfway between when we took off and landing, Lola somehow managed to get her head out through the uh the side of the bag. Um so I was sitting at the front, Jared was in the back, and he's sort of gone, oh just so everyone knows that um the dog has somehow managed to get its head out. It's okay. Um I think she just wanted to have a look. She was just as interested as everyone else. Um it's not every day you're a bulldog getting to find a place. No way. No way. Um and I think uh I think she's probably only the maybe the the second or third dog that we've ever ever had in there. Um so she's uh she's of a rare uh breed, I guess. Um but yeah, got everyone to the the lake Clifton Tav. We uh um had a discussion of whether we should shut the helicopters down and go in for a parmy with them because we were pretty we were pretty cold too. But we thought um we'd better go back because at this stage the helicopter was full of sand, so much sand. Um we ended up having to take all of the seats out and took us about an hour and a half to to clean it out. But uh good result in the end, and I'm sure those the eight people and Lola of course would have been very grateful for your help. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Um they were, yeah. Like I said, they um they spent a cold night um in their cars, in their tents, and they'd they'd spent a cold day, and by the time they'd called us, I think they were they were pretty much ready to go home and have a hot shower. Just want to acknowledge quickly before we we wrap it up, the um the crew, um the pilot in particular um that you worked with that day, that the the wind speeds and the weather conditions for for this rescue in particular are right at the extreme level. Is that the the worst you've seen conditions when you've been up in the aircraft? Uh yeah, it's it's pretty close to it, I think. Um we can operate in you know most weather, to be honest. There's not a whole lot that'll keep us on the ground. Um, you know, we'll we'll go up when it's raining, we'll go up when it's windy, um, and and that's exactly what this is. It's why we train. It's why we train every day. Excellent. Thank you once again, Josh, for taking the time out. And uh hopefully the weather's uh fined up now for you to head back out there. Yeah, well, I don't think it's gonna get much worse. Yeah, no worries. Thanks for joining us. You're listening to WA Police Confidential. You're listening to WA Police Confidential. Police appraising a strong community and multi-agency response following a large-scale search for a missing child in Perth's Western suburbs over the weekend. Eleven-year-old Norman, a boy living with autism, went missing on Saturday afternoon, sparking significant welfare concerns and a major coordinated search effort involving police, SDS volunteers, and the local community. The operation unfolded in challenging conditions and ultimately led to a positive outcome. Joining us today is Inspector Mark Tobison from the Perth District Office, who was the officer in charge of coordinating that search effort that day. Sir, thanks for joining us. Um horrendous conditions over the weekend with the weather the way it was. Um tell us what was going through your mind when you got the call that um 11-year-old Norman had gone missing. I got the call at two o'clock in the morning. Um so significant resources had already been deployed to try and find him. And um the decision had been made to involve the SES, um, which then um triggered the phone call to myself. The weather was the most the biggest concern to me, as you rightly pointed out, because if he'd been missing all that time, uh and the information at the time was that he was only wearing a pair of shorts or a pair of pull-up um pants, um that he could be in significant risk of hypothermia or any other um associated risks around that bad weather. Um so that was the the immediate concern to me. Not only that, but uh we were asking for searches to be out in that weather, which was quite dangerous with tree branches falling you know, around the place you drive around the next morning, they were everywhere. So it's like a uh a once in a decade storm, I believe, the weather um de weather bureau was reporting. So um you mentioned just before the interview that the SES they're already um and for those of our international audience who don't know what the SES is, the State Emergency Service, they're uh overseen by our fire department, by the Department of Fire Emergency Services, um are a group of volunteers. Correct. And uh they were responding to a whole range of calls, weren't they, throughout the night. Yeah, look, they uh because they're volunteers um and they're the emergency service volunteers, they are quite busy and active on bad weather days um because uh windows get broken from trees fallen down and have roofs ripped off, and so they uh uh respond to help people who are in need during that bad weather. So they were already busy and had a lot on, um, but and it was a horrible wet morning uh to come in as volunteers because they weren't getting paid. Um but they came in numbers to to help try to find Norman. And 11 years old, you know, there's there's obviously the weather concerns, the risk of him being out in this in this weather overnight. The fact that he's eleven years old and struggling with uh other challenges as well. Tell us a little bit about why that was a heightened risk for you guys and treating it with such priority. Um Well, just the fact that he was a child for a start. Um, and then of course he lives with autism, he's non-verbal, which means he was unable to communicate with anybody. Uh he was known to to run, um, run away if there was any loud noise or he felt threatened by anybody. So even if we, you know, if somebody found him, there was a the risk of him running away. One of the other real concerns that we had um during the search was that he's attracted to water. So where he was last seen was quite close to a lake. So that brought us significant uh concerns about um whether or not he may attempt to go into the water um unsupervised clearly. So that was a real concern to us. And of course, as we discussed already, the weather was um if he was uh if he was walking around in that weather with only a pair of shorts on, a pair of pull-up underwear, um that was a significant risk to us. But not counting his vulnerability uh under normal circumstances. To give the community an appreciation for the the scale of this search, what uh police resources were were activated for this for this uh search effort? So initially there were just police resources, but that involved um police in cars, police on push bikes, police on motorbikes. Um by the middle of the night, obviously the decision had been made to involve others. We did get police airwing up initially, but the weather was so bad that they couldn't do anything and they had to land again. Uh in the morning we got um the mounted section, so police on horseback. Um uh and then with the SES volunteers, they brought dogs, tracker dogs, they brought uh ATV four um motorbikes essentially to try and um cover off in some of the bush areas around the lake for us. That's quite a significant turnout from uh from an emergency service point of view. But uh notably as well, I was with you at the command post when we we did a media um conference uh appealing for information. A lot of members of the public came down to to offer assistance. Yeah, you make a valid point there, Nate. There was a lot of all through the night, the the members of the community in Claremont are quite close. Um they have their own little chat like most communities do. And um they were uh prior to my arrival, the night shift um coordinator explained to me that they while they were walking around in the bush near the lake, they estimated 50 to 60 community members with torches walking around through the through the bush near the lake. Um and there were some of those people who were there all night long. And they, as you rightly pointed out, they approached us in the morning to to see if they could um if we could organise them and coordinate their response to to the search and um and other members of the community who just wandered up to us saying how can we help put us to use. So um we we we do the media conference um early in the morning around 9 30. Um about 9 45 you get a call. What happened? Yeah, so we'd only just barely done the media release inviting people to go out in the backyard and look for him and under trampolines or anywhere he could hide to stay out of the weather. Uh and as soon as Amida drove away, I walked back to the the police post and um got the call, uh command post rather, and got the call then that um he'd been found. Uh I initially said as the the senior officer there that we weren't going to stop anything at this point until we could confirm it because I've had that happen before where we Yep, we found them and then the family coming out, that's not that's not my grandma. So until such time as we can confirm for certain it's him. Uh I was able to then uh log into the body worn camera of the officers who attended. Um and the uh the CAD job that came in or the the job that came in to tell us that he was at an address and had been found. Some police officers were assigned to go there. I logged logged into their body worn camera footage only to see them talk to the people who said, Well, we haven't seen him, but he's not here. Um which made me think, Oh my gosh, we've got it wrong. I've got a false identity. But it turned out that the the job they got in fact it was one word difference. It said the house as opposed to a house, and everybody assumed the house was his home address, and that's where they went. He wasn't there, he was at a different address. I logged into the body one camera footage of the officers who attended that address and was able to see um Norman all rugged up and nice and warm and being taken care of. At which point I was fra comfortable to call off the search. Yeah, it must have been a a pretty um pretty good feeling to have that sort of outcome, particularly after a night spent out in in those elements as a an eleven-year-old with no shelter and non-verbal as well. It must have been it must have been really good from a policing perspective. Absolutely. We didn't know at the time because obviously he was non-verbal, so he couldn't tell us what he was doing and where he'd been. Um he wasn't as wet and cold and as we uh considered he probably should have been, had he been out all night. It turns out he he hadn't been out all night in the in the weather, which is a good thing. Um so he'd found his way to a empty house. So the householder was away visiting family. They left the back door open. Somehow Norman found it and he went in the house, made himself at home for the night. So when the occupant of the home came home and reali and had seen the the media information around him being missing, saw the state of the house, went, Hmm, I think he's been here. So they called us and um and then we went around and had a look, spoke with them, and it turns out that he looks like he'd been there most of the night. So he wasn't out in the weather, but we didn't know that um until afterwards. Very resourceful little boy. Indeed. So by and that's the reason why. Uh and that house was right near where he was last seen. So early in the piece um because sometimes when you get we send out the emergency alerts, and when we get calls, we can't always be certain that oh, I think I've seen that person. We can't always be certain that those calls are accurate. Not to say people are dishonest, but I I think I saw them, it looked like him. But in this case, in the first emergency alert, there was no mention of him being in an appy. But we had multiple calls from people saying there's a little boy who's just wearing an appear and nothing else, and I saw him at this time at this place. So we're fairly confident that those calls were accurate because that's an unusual thing to see or to report, and we hadn't made that known to the public yet. The last of those reports were right near this house where he he found shelter, which is the reason why when the alert went out at 5 10 in the morning, we got no calls because he was still in the house. So as soon as he came out and started walking down the street, the community were already out still looking for him. Um some local community members saw him and approached him. He ran away as we suspected he would. Um and that's where he turned up at um Mrs. Hall's house. On Davies Road there, yeah. On Davies Road, um, as reported in the news. And that location was metres away from the house where he'd spent the night. So there you go. So he hadn't he hadn't ventured too far. Um thankfully he'd actually sought shelter and wasn't out in the elements as we'd feared. Correct. Um and uh a good result all round. Absolutely. Uh we touched on last week, didn't we, Claire, uh, with the emergency operations unit the safe and found program. Um this could be a an option. option opportunity I should say for family members um with who who have you know relatives with with um uh vulnerabilities to register for Safe and Found. Absolutely. Uh and in this case um we as an agency have already approached the family to register Norman because he has gone missing before. And the beauty of Safe and Found is that you know at the beginning stages we have to collect as much information as we can about what they're wearing and what they usually do and where they might be found and all that information it takes time. But when the person is registered with Safe and Found that information is already available right up front and it saves time having to do those things and makes it a lot easier for us. So that and for for background purposes people that might not be aware it's it's um it's backed by Medicalert. You can register your family member at a small fee but there are some opportunities at the moment with funding with the cost of living crisis. But yeah as you said so that the it's got all that background information that we would otherwise spend uh precious minutes or hours um trying to validate it's all there even consents for releases of of up to date images and and the like um so if you do have a family member in that in that category like Norman um Google uh safe and found and and register. Yeah any anybody who you might any family member you might consider to be vulnerable for whatever reason. Yeah. And certainly those who wander off um regularly, it does make it easier for us to coordinate things much quicker um when we have that information. And I suppose just lastly is there a message for the community that did turn out to help and you know support police and emergency services in the search for Norman? Yeah absolutely look I I met with the uh SES the volunteers initially uh to thank them for coming out and participating on such a horrible day and I did the same when they left to thank them for their efforts because let's be honest they're volunteers they didn't have to come but they did. On top of that of course are the the community volunteers who who showed up in in number willing to um do whatever they could to help many of whom were walking around the suburb in the middle of the night all night long to to try and find him. And so to all those people we say thank you. You know as I said to the volunteers w we can't do these things on our own. We only have so many people and we can't be everywhere at once. And to so to have all those extra resources, all those extra people, all those extra eyes um is encouraging and it it certainly helps uh us to find the results like we found with with Norman and we do really appreciate that. Outstanding work. Thank you once again sir for taking the time to come and uh tell us uh about that uh epic story with Norman and uh we will check in with you uh later. All right WA Police Confidential All units the WA police force is looking for people all kinds of people people in the tech in the component into four-wheel driving dog people and horse people people who like motorbikes pushbikes planes helicopters and boats people who are big on community helping others and solving true crime not just watching it in it ordinary people who are up for doing extraordinary things. If you could be one of these people you've found your people search let's join forces. Welcome back to WA Police Confidential well if you've been listening the last couple of episodes you would have seen we're running something on our socials and on this podcast called Takedown of the Year People's Choice Awards. Now we're not out to demean or embarrass criminals or anything like that but the very core of what police do is keeping the community safe and that means arresting people and taking dangerous people off the streets. And today we're here acknowledging some of those jobs so here to talk takedowns is Taz Eto. Thanks for joining us thanks for having me back mate Claire it's been it's been good this segment so unfortunately this is the last one. But I'm really looking forward to these two as well we've got a couple these are the last few um so if you are keen to be part of this vote head to our socials have a look at all the takedowns we've got 10 in total including the two that we'll launch today um so yeah take us through the first one. Awesome all right bit of a theme these two um both of them involving motorised scooters andor it's like an electric bike wasn't it the other ones are yeah bit of a strange one but you'll be the judge at over these ones again we're not glorifying um uh the the tackling of crooks or you know the arresting process we're just in a sometimes lengthless job we're bringing it to the forefront that coppers are doing the hard yards and that's sometimes putting themselves in danger to put these crooks um away or to bring them to justice so I'll get straight into it uh number nine you'll see the footage running now Clarkson police observe an unregistered motorbike being ridden erratically through traffic before uh tracking it to an unmarked sort of tracking it in an unmarked vehicle as you say uh when the rider stopped at a traffic light obviously unbeknown to him that the cops were behind him um the cops have jumped out uh grabbed the crook off the bike who's again attempted to run from him taking the rider into custody the bike was seized and towed away while the rider was taken into custody and then and then dealt with um bit of a fun fact this one I went to the academy with the bloke that arrested him so Forbes are you well done on this arrest uh yeah I'm 17685 Forbes is 17683 so we used to sit next to each other most days so no great result you'll see on the uh on the footage there it was it was good very sneaky little sneak attack um again the the the takedown's actually quite great because you get the crook you get him in custody but this bloke riding around the way he was riding on this vehicle he's gonna either cause some damage to himself mostly um not so much if he hit runs into a car they're gonna cause damage to another car but it's just the like putting your life on the line for a bit of fun through the traffic is is the chaotic part behind this. But these electric electric motorcycles they can reach you know similar speeds to regular petrol powered motorbikes can't they yeah absolutely and he's just fanging it through traffic so it's it becomes very dangerous to do riding and that's why we we're not we're not in the business for chasing people um or or stuff like that especially when it comes to traffic and things like that. But when the opportunity presented to grab him off that bike um by all means the cops did a great job and and an outstanding takedown that's the uh the the element of surprise there too is where's a copper when you need one and then they emerge out of an unmarked car in traffic and and grab the guy from behind great result. This next one keeping to trend we've got a a male's riding on a moped recklessly around Perth C B D the footage for this um the cameras that they've got at Perth are actually phenomenal and you'll see in the footage here just how how well they can track people through Perth so there's always eyes in you and Perth it's always um good thing to keep in your back of your mind. So he's riding recklessly through the streets um of Perth and up onto the footpaths and everything else like that doing wheelies riding through the mall um police tracked him on the cameras and um the police bike team were also in pursuit of him as well as the man was seen by police he was took off running in a direction to a dead end. As he realized it was a dead end he's uh turned the bike around and then drove directly towards the police on his moped he's lost control of his moped and the officers have jumped all over him uh to just bring that uh chase to an end which and again you'll see in the footage here just flat out launching yourself into a crook to get him and it's it's great work from the coppers here. I'm actually you know I said before it's a thankless job sometimes but this guy's done everything he could like if you take out one of the civilians as you said Sarge going 50-60k an hour down a a city footpath you're gonna kill someone and this was in Northbridge you know you've got drunk people people who aren't aware of their situ you know their surroundings you know and this guy could have easily yeah cleaned someone up yeah and and and and on weekend no less so there's also parents and you'll see in the footage there's parents with kids out um some of those kids as young as six or seven years old and we don't want to be responding to jobs we're like that and part of reducing those jobs is what these two cops have managed to do and that's to take someone down and and do it in a very very professional way. And I think when the guy lost control of that uh vehicle the cop actually hurtled over it when it was yeah it was it's pretty incredible you have to go and check it out. This one's gonna be up there. This one's gonna it's a genuine absolute great takedown great result he was charged with a lot of offences um and absolutely brought to justice but he done a good job while doing it as well if he hurtled over a uh a fallen scooter he may be able to participate in the World Police Fire games come in 2020 great little that's a great little sidestep into the police and fire games I love that yeah great great work no we'll get his number we'll hassle him for that too yeah yeah nice one well once again as you said uh Taz um if they've got if the the members of the public want to vote where can they go? Just go on our socials um we'll be listing all 10 of the uh of the takedowns of the year this year um and uh luckily one one winner will uh walk away with a roll award a recognition of excellence award later on this month um it's a great initiative again Claire you've said it Sarge you've said it we're not glorifying the process of arresting people we're just saying thank you to these coppers that are continuously putting themselves in harm's way to bring these people to justice so get onto the socials get around it and start voting thanks for joining us thanks guys this is WA Police Confidential It's time for the news headlines of the week Claire what's been happening around the state well Nate we've had a big one out of our drug and firearms squad two men have been charged after detectives seized more than 80 kilograms of illicit drugs. So while it all kicked off with a traffic stop in West Pinjarra police allegedly found one kilogram of cocaine in a car and that led them to a second man in Balcutta allegedly carrying three kilograms of methamphetamine. Search warrants followed and uncovered massive quantities across Bayswater and Del Yellow so a good result for our drug and firearms squad and the community getting these drugs off the streets. Meanwhile we had double demerits over the long weekend so we hope everyone stayed safe out on the roads. However we did have a couple of serious crashes one where two cars and a pedestrian collided on West Coast Drive in North Beach on Saturday and sadly a fatal crash in Welshpool where a single vehicle came off the road and a 21 year old driver died at the scene. Meanwhile just yesterday we had a fatal crash in Lockridge where an 82 year old female died at the scene in a in a car V car collision. So stay safe out on the roads the the message stays loud and clear and doesn't change but yeah really want to change those behaviors out on the roads. Well last week we asked the question the WA police force is 173 years old but one of its most glamorous units is even older. Nate tell us which unit is older than the police force itself Claire it's the water police they're celebrating 175 years of service they were first established as the Imperial Water Police in 1851 which is two years before the actual establishment of the WA police force so they are older than the agency itself would you believe it was the start of the convict era here in WA so the main purpose was to ensure the safety of the shipping port of Fremantle and prevent the escape of convicts by ship. Officers were highly regarded and there were there was plenty of competition for the job which I believe it is today as well. Water police is a highly sought after position. In September 1852 they proved their worth in the wake of a shipwreck off the Eglinton coast which is a suburb that we now know today in the northern suburbs 50K's north of Perth the ship was carrying 65,000 gold sovereigns at the time colonial treasury funds from London and the water police were involved in the recovery and secure passage of the valuable cargo to Perth. Today they're still considered one of the glamour squads of our agency and we wish them a happy 175th birthday. Oh that's great Nate thank you very much for that teaser who knew that one of our units was actually older than the force itself there you go. Some of our older officers speak pretty fondly of the days of a specialist crime squad called 79 Division but how did it get that unusual name and what did it do to be made so memorable so we'll tell you that next week on WA Police Confidential was produced by Joe Garris, Danny Vandeveer, Lisa Evans and Sam Oo Sound editing by Joe and Danny and Sam, cover song by the WA Police Pipe Band and Cheesy Podcast theme music by Joey Cantaro. By the way why just listen to a podcast about policing when you could actually be doing it let's join forces.wa.gov.au