{"id":329459,"date":"2025-10-24T15:40:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T15:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/329459\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T15:40:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T15:40:14","slug":"wa-town-of-kununurra-in-crime-crisis-with-17-juvenile-arrests-in-72-hours-over-car-thefts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/329459\/","title":{"rendered":"WA town of Kununurra in crime crisis with 17 juvenile arrests in 72 hours over car thefts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police in Western Australia’s north are at their wits’ end, with juveniles as young as 10 arrested in the Kimberley town of Kununurra this week.<\/p>\n

The last three days saw a trend of juveniles stealing cars and driving them recklessly, both to escape police pursuit and in an attempt to ram officer vehicles.<\/p>\n

Police say the latest incident happened around 11:05pm on Thursday, when a white Toyota Prado was stolen from a property on Boobialla Way.<\/p>\n

Officers located and pursued the car, making multiple attempts to stop it, only for the Prado to be driven recklessly towards police vehicles.<\/p>\n

Police found the vehicle abandoned on Caltropis Court at about 2:50am on Friday and arrested nine juveniles, aged between 10 and 17.<\/p>\n

That followed similar high-risk incidents in the early hours of Wednesday, where eight juveniles were arrested after a stolen car was driven recklessly towards a police vehicle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The incident was videoed and posted to social media, leading to significant media attention.<\/p>\n

‘Actions will not be tolerated’<\/p>\n

Kimberley Superintendent John Hutchison said the spate of stolen cars and dangerous pursuits had put the community at risk.<\/p>\n

“This week’s incidents show a blatant disregard for the safety of the community and the vehicle occupants,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Actions like these will not be tolerated and will result in arrest.<\/p>\n

“Kununurra Police continue to act decisively to manage incidents and protect the community.”<\/p>\n

Superintendent Hutchison said a ‘significant’ number of extra officers had been deployed to Kununurra.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Superintendent John Hutchison says his officers have been put at risk in Kununurra this week. (ABC Kimberley: Andrew Seabourne)<\/p>\n

He said no officers or members of the public had been injured.<\/p>\n

Shire president highlights danger<\/p>\n

Shire of Wyndham and East Kimberley president David Menzal said the latest crime spree was frustrating.<\/p>\n

“It’s disappointing \u2014 the return of something we haven’t seen in quite a while,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Our major concerns are the children themselves, they shouldn’t be racing around in stolen cars.<\/p>\n

“The police have to deal with it and the community could suffer from the consequences.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr Menzel commended the police for the work they did and said the community needed to do better to support them.<\/p>\n

“They are doing some dangerous jobs and we need make sure they are kept safe,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"White<\/p>\n

David Menzel says children need to be engaged so they attend school. (ABC Kimberley: Giulia Bertoglio)<\/p>\n

Mr Menzel said the community had put in a lot of time and effort to help “street-present children”.<\/p>\n

“We really want to see some actions that will put responsibility on the guardians and engage the kids so they are at school and not tearing around at night-time,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Menzel said the funding from the state government to introduce a night patrol program and safe space would help the situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police in Western Australia’s north are at their wits’ end, with juveniles as young as 10 arrested in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":326431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,163761,163759,162621,162618,163760,50,38010,14156,8632,14370,67682],"class_list":{"0":"post-329459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-broome","10":"tag-john-hutchison","11":"tag-kimberley","12":"tag-kununurra","13":"tag-kununurra-crime","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-police-pursuit","16":"tag-stolen-car","17":"tag-wa-news","18":"tag-wa-police","19":"tag-youth-crime"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115429901930373854","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}