Senior police officers in Tayside have joined beat patrols in local communities in the first of a series of high-profile nights focusing attention on crimes of violence and anti-social behaviour.
The Campaign Against Violence days bring specialist officers out from behind their desks on to the streets to take part in police searches, visits to licensed premises and increased patrols in “hotspot areas”.
Operations took place at the weekend in Dundee, Perth and across Angus.
In Dundee’s Downfield station, Superintendent Kevin Lynch briefed his officers before himself heading out on patrol in Lochee.
He told them: “We are very actively engaging with the public. There are criminals and there are law-abiding citizens. You will be speaking to both. Anyone we speak to will be told we are here to keep people safe.
“Intelligence tells us we are targeting an area where violence has a propensity. There is no such thing as a petty assault no victim regards it as petty.”
Similar campaigns are being carried out across Scotland on Campaign Against Violence operations. Officers who do not regularly perform patrols must now complete 12 days on the streets every year, four of them compulsory set shifts on the campaign days.
Supt Lynch said: “Where it comes to drugs, misuse of alcohol, knife crime, we are trying to take a preventative stance rather than deal with an incident after the fact.
“This is the first time it has been done across the country for Police Scotland. We have officers out who would not normally be considered to be carrying out frontline duties. It is quite a significant increase in numbers.”
Across the city, in Lochee, Inspector Bryan Knight and Constable Christina McCalman made a top-to-bottom sweep of the Adamson Court multi-storey.
The building’s stairwells and open areas were inspected and a curfew check was carried out on a resident.
Inspector Knight said: “My day job is based in specialist operations looking after things like public order. This is a way of making sure we are giving something back to the community, getting out and getting involved.”
“People have been more than happy to speak to us. You can see people looking out their windows of the multis, so the yellow jackets get noticed.”
Outside the adjacent Elders Court, Chief Inspector Delyth Cunnah and Sgt Allana Lewek stopped a man to check his details and ask him to empty out his pockets.
He was apprehensive, but co-operated and was soon on his way.
CI Cunnah said: “He wasn’t a happy customer. But this is good. It brings us back to earth and makes us aware of what we are asking our officers to do.”