On the second of May, Lismore and the Northern Rivers farewelled Commander (Cmdr) of the Richmond Police District, Scott Tanner. Cmdr Tanner moved to western Sydney to be the Cmdr of Liverpool and Green Valley Police District.

Cue the introductions for the Richmond Police District's new Commander, Dave Roptell. Cmdr Roptell joins us from the Tweed Byron Police District, where he spent six and a half years.

As you would expect, Cmdr Roptell has had an extensive career in the NSW Police Force. He is looking to go above and beyond to help prevent youth crime, not just lock them up.

Cmdr Roptell is a Sydney boy who joined the police force in January 1990, thirty-five years ago, in southwest Sydney, so Campsie and Lakemba. He was promoted to Sergeant at Bankstown before being promoted again as an Inspector at Rose Bay, in Sydney's Eastern suburbs and then an Inspector at Redfern.

"Redfern really opened my eyes to engaging young people, vulnerable people, the Aboriginal community, and working really closely with them to form partnerships. And that was a real turning point in the way I was made to think and act and see the benefits of engaging the community positively through sport, like early morning boxing programs. I really took that on board," he told the Lismore App.

Cmdr Roptell was then promoted to Superintendent as a staff officer to one of the Deputy Commissioners in Sydney before accepting an appointment as a Commander in one of the Police Transport Commands, looking after the south/southwest of the state, which included South West Sydney, down to the border of Bega.

Due to his days in Redfern and his understanding of engaging youth, the NSW Police Commissioner asked Cmdr Roptell to set up a Youth and Crime Prevention Command in 2018.

"For 12 months, I set that command up, working really closely with the PCYC to set a different platform for engaging young people. Then I was asked to come up to Tweed Byron as the commander. I took up that opportunity in January 2019, and now I'm here at the Richmond Police District."

While Cmdr Roptell has had a predominantly operational policing role within the NSW Police Force, he did have some secondments in the Close Personal Protection field. This involved looking after Prime Minister John Howard for a couple of weeks and led to meeting world leaders, such as US President George W Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While they were highlights of his policing career so far, Cmdr Roptell names COVID-19 and the 2022 floods as his biggest highlights.

"Lismore, obviously, was the centre of attention, but the Tweed area was as well, particularly the Murwillumbah and Mullumbimby townships were lost for a while. I just saw the resilience in the community there, and in parts of Byron Bay, out in the far west parts of the district, with landslides and so forth.

"It was amazing that we only lost two people during that time. Two people were too many; this is up in the Tweed, but that was a very challenging time for two or three months of managing the flood and then the after-effects.

"Then there was the COVID period as well. We all had to deal with the restrictions from a policing/law enforcement side. But what made it unique up at Tweed was the border.

"Bordering the Gold Coast was very, very challenging, because my understanding is it's the sixth largest city in Australia, and a lot of people lived in New South Wales and vice versa, in Queensland, that commuted across the border each day to work. But when the border was closed, that was a massive challenge for anti-social behaviour and protests. Having five or six thousand people up at the border for three or four weeks running with limited resources was a big challenge for us. We had specialists come up from Sydney to help us.

"It really opened my eyes up and gave me an understanding of why people were upset about not getting to work and doing the simple things in life, like getting medication."

Cmdr Roptell had eighty (80) police officers living in Queensland but working for the NSW Police Force at that stage, who were not permitted to cross the border. Alternative arrangements were set up in Queensland so that those officers would work and support other officers at Tweed Heads.

(Commander Dave Roptell (middle) with the latest batch of new recruits at the Lismore Police Station)

What does Cmdr Dave Roptell hope to achieve in the Richmond Police District?

"I find policing is very similar, especially in my position as a leader, like we're dealing with emergencies, emergency management, anti-social behaviour and crime. That's all the same. So, wherever you go, you should be able to just pick up your skills and deal with it. The only difference, I suppose, is that Tweed itself was very, very busy, just bordering Coolangatta. So, a lot more people gather in the CBD, like Byron Bay, as a holiday place.

"From what I can see, Lismore is probably not as busy in the CBD as in a lot of people walking around, going to the shops. You still have people doing that, and there's still anti-social behaviour. I'm not watering it down by any stretch, but what I am going to do, so I get a feel for it is, in the coming weeks, we are running a high profile operation in the Lismore CBD, working in with council, focusing on shoplifting, focusing on anti social behaviour, compliance, all that type of stuff, just to get an idea of what's out there in the CBD, and obviously, to reassure the community that we're around."

A similar exercise at The Tweed achieved good results, so Cmdr Roptell hopes for similar results for Lismore, Ballina, and Casino in the coming months.

Cmdr Roptell's days in Redfern have helped him continue the good work started by Scott Tanner, and that is engaging with young people every Wednesday. In Casino, there is a project called Hometown Hero that is designed to prevent youth offenders from reoffending and falling into a life of crime.

"Basically, we're looking at leaders in the community that are still youngish, like leaders of the local football club, Aboriginals, to play a game of touch, boxing, looking at some of their heritage, like turtle hunting. There are kids that are vulnerable, when I say kids, I mean 16 or 17-year-olds who have not had the cleanest life, so to speak. But I have the utmost respect for them, and I tell you why.

"I'd only met them twice, and I had a boxing fight three weeks ago, and I had only been at this command at the time for two weeks. The fight was on a Wednesday up at Fortitude Valley in Brisbane, and I'd already formed a relationship, only going to this program twice. As part of it, I suggested that the young people come up from the Hometown Hero project and support me. And they did. 15 of them jumped in the bus and travelled up and supported me, and that meant so much to me. That has just formed that really, really strong relationship.

"On top of that, from a youth crime perspective, it's not just here, but it's a number of districts to the west and up here in the North, we are focusing on high visibility, locking up serious offenders for breaking into homes, stealing cars, all that type of stuff. Youth crime has now turned around dramatically. We've really shown our force with youth crime.

"But having said that, it needs a bit more. And the bit more is, once again, those engagements I'm talking about. One thing I'm really focusing on as well is getting them employment. So ACMENA is the local holding detention centre at Coffs. I went down there on Tuesday, where I saw one of those major offenders who is in there until October when he will be released, but he needs that direction when he gets out.

"So, I've been in contact with the meat works at Casino, who are very, very, very much on board to the point where they're willing to provide assistance to get these young people employment. So, I spoke to one of the leaders, and I gave him some homework. I said, right, next Tuesday, I'm coming back down. I want you to get a group of your mates from around the Richmond area, around Lismore, around Casino, wherever, and I'm going to bring someone from the meatworks, an employer, who is going to sit down with you and we're going to talk about what options you're going to have. But, it's going to start when you're inside here to hopefully get you employment, so when you're released, you're not going back to where you came from.

"We can only try, and hopefully, this type of approach should have a positive effect."

Cmdr Roptell went on to explain that if the youth have difficulties in getting to work, the Casino meatworks is looking for solutions to help break previous patterns.

"What assistance do they need? Is it washing their clothes? Is it picking them up in a bus? What can we do to get them to come on board to help them? These youth are coming from humble beginnings, something we all take for granted. The Youth Officers at ACMENA have a program where they mow the lawn, but some don't even know what a lawn mower is. So, it just shows you that they haven't been shown or given that opportunity in life."

As you can read, Commander Dave Roptell is cut from the same cloth as Scott Tanner. It is not only about policing in the Richmond Police District, but it is about prevention when it comes to youth crime, which hopefully leads to fewer people in incarceration.

On the personal side, Dave Roptell is married to Alicia, loves the South Sydney Rabbitohs and boxing.

He has had about nine fights, including a recent semi-professional fight in Brisbane.

"It was a very, very good experience. And, yeah, I just really enjoyed it. Hopefully, my next fight will be in August, it will be the Golden Gloves up on the Gold Coast. I competed in that one last year, and went well, and hopefully the World Masters at the end of the year, around October, up on the Gold Coast again."

It appears as though we have another excellent Commander at the helm of the Richmond Police District.