By Abbey Cannan
Noosa police have been reengaging with the community through ’Coffee with a Cop’ mornings at locations across the Sunshine Coast.
Senior Constable Tom Middleton, Sergeant Neil Ashley, and Senior Constable Jessica Phillips from the District Crime Prevention Unit recently spent the morning outside of Nook & Co Espresso Bar in Tewantin answering questions and having a chat with community members.
Senior Constable Phillips said her new role was all about getting out in the community and talking to the public.
“We want to get across a good prevention message on keeping their properties safe and keeping their vehicles safe, because we have had a slight increase in motor vehicle theft across the Sunshine Coast,“ she said.
“So we’re just trying to get across the message to keep your keys hidden, not somewhere where they’re typically found. Most of our stolen cars occurs from the keys being taken.“
Senior Constable Phillips said it was important that the community did their bit to prevent crime, while the police did their job to find offenders.
“With Covid last year, a lot of police were tasked to the Covid deployments and so I think the public may have felt there was that disengagement and that’s probably across the board with every agency,“ she said.
“I think this is a good opportunity, we’re going to do Tewantin, Beerwah, and across the Sunshine Coast in the next few months and just try to bring us into the community.“
She said people sometimes avoided going into a police station with a question as they felt like they were wasting the officer’s time.
“We want people to know that we’re just people,“ Senior Constable Phillips said.
“We’ve got a job to do but we’re also human and I think this is a great way to start that.
“We’ve had some great donations from different businesses to be able to put on free coffee for the community and then we’re giving out some merchandise and getting the prevention message out there.
“I think we’ve had 30 or 40 people so far today with different questions, so its been good.“
