Police out in force at remote rural location

WE may never know the extent to which an apparently routine callout for police at a remote rural Queensland property, on December 12 last year, has changed the tactical response to such incidents across Australia.

But we may have seen some indication of that last Tuesday, January 17 at Poowong.

All we know officially is that the incident involved a “mental health episode”.

But when police were called to a remote, rural location late morning last Tuesday, just east of the township of Poowong, on the Drouin-Korumburra Road; they weren’t leaving anything to chance.

They responded with upwards of four police cars, three ambulances, the Police Air Wing, and reportedly, the police ‘Bearcat’ armored vehicle, a piece of equipment reserved for use in high-risk incidents such as sieges and armed offender incidents.

Poowong locals report seeing the black armored vehicle roll into town and also that the police helicopter circled above for half an hour.

Something was going on, they said.

“There was a man having a mental health episode who was taken into custody,” said a spokesperson for Victoria Police afterwards.

“There were no injuries,” they said.

Whether the person involved was known to police has not been confirmed.

Whether police suspected firearms might be present was also not addressed.