Officers from the North Community Policing Team were joined by Councillor James Valentine when they carried out a day of action on Wednesday, June 30, in the Kempston West area focussing on drugs, knife crime and e-scooters.
This consisted of weapons sweeps, stopping and educating people using illegal e-scooters and conducting plain clothes and high visibility patrols in the area.
No knives were found during the weapons sweeps but a large screwdriver was found in one of the alleyways and seized.
Many people on e-scooters were stopped and spoken to and given definitive information leaflets on the illegal use of these vehicles on the roads and footpaths.
This was ahead of a week of action beginning on July 6, in which the police are starting to seize e-scooters under S165a of the Road Traffic Act.
Officers also conducted door step meetings in various roads to gather intelligence and see what issues people had.
A wanted male was found and arrested for recall to prison. In the evening they were joined by the Boson team (guns and gangs) and the CET (community enforcement team) who along with officers conducted both high visibility and plain clothes patrols in the Kempston area, looking specifically to gather intelligence and disrupt any drug dealing/use.
There were six people stopped and searched, one male was reported for possession of cannabis, one male given a community resolution for possession of cannabis. There were also had a number of people who made-off from officers throughout the evening, one of these males was caught and searched but nothing was found on him.
On another occasion a burner phone which was likely dropped a person making-off was found in an alleyway and seized.
Around 12 intelligence reports were input through-out the day.
The police are very pleased with the day’s action and would like to encourage the community to continue reporting any drug dealing to them using the online reporting tool, whilst they can’t always respond immediately, the more information they receive the better picture they can build and the more action can be taken.
