FRANKIE DeGROOT | News | CONTACT

As part of Australia’s ongoing fight against COVID-19, Police Forces in all states have taken measures to minimise the risk to themselves and the general public by both enforcing social distancing rules and employing their own precautionary measures.

One of the newest operational changes is the transportation of suspects in the boots of patrol cars instead of in the cabin, where the close proximity of suspects to Police Officers could potentially facilitate the spread of the deadly virus.

Small-time crim Daniel Starkes, who was amongst the first to try out the new measures during the week, described the experience as “bullshit”.

“It was bullshit man, I was just walking down the street, you know, not stealing lawnmowers or nuffin” explained Daniel. “They just pushed me around, cuffed me and shoved me in the boot of the car for no reason. I don’t even know what the coppers are talking about. I never even seen a lawnmower or nuffin. I don’t even know what a lawnmower is. I wasn’t even walking down the street that day. I was asleep at mum’s house, just ask her.”

However, Senior Constable Justin Carthage said the new protocol was essential, and anybody who didn’t feel like being crammed into the boot of a speeding car could easily avoid it by not doing illegal shit.

“Obviously we need to take measures to protect ourselves and can’t be seen to be breaking the laws we are trying to enforce. After measuring our patrol vehicles we discovered that unfortunately, back seat passengers are within the 1.5m exclusion zone of the front seat passengers so we needed to adjust our modus operandi urgently.”

“At first we tried driving around with an extra patrol car on a trailer which we would give to the suspect to drive themselves to the station. It was supposed to work like a sort of honour system but after the loss of 23 cars we realised we could more effectively transport suspects by utilising the boot space. Whilst it may be slightly less comfortable for suspects than sitting inside the passenger compartment, we do try to minimise their period of discomfort by travelling to the police station as quickly as possible, even if it means we have to drive over speed humps without slowing down, sometimes multiple times”.