Police praise locals for arrest

NEW Ireland Police Commander Chief Insp Felix Nebanat has acknowledged the Tavol community in Mussau for conducting a community arrest of a suspect.
He said under leadership of community police officer Brian Salo and the help of a relative, the community arrested the suspect who was involved in an unlawful wounding of another person.
“Two cases of unlawful wounding were reported from the community, however, at that time, all police personnel were focused on the Tigak operations and no one attended to the cases,” he said.
He said instead of waiting for police to attend to the matter, the community made the arrest and brought the suspect to Kavieng police station at their own cost.
“This signifies that the community is slowly regaining trust in police, if we can get more communities in New Ireland stepping up and making more community arrests, our crime rate will go down,” he said.
“That will enable the police to focus on major offenses and come up with cross-cutting measures that will proactively rebuild trust in police.”
Nebanat said the people of New Ireland were beginning to understand their responsibilities to ensure restoration of peace in communities.
“When community arrests are made, suspects are brought in to surrender to the police before formal charges are made, this saves government funds for services.”