[17][18][19]: 9 Dugdale and Chipper were employed under the Police Act with full constabulary powers, but were officially commissioned to "patrol slum neighbourhoods", "look after drunken women", and "obtain assistance for their neglected children".

[2] This came after several years of Western Australian police officers "quitting in record numbers", attributed to "poor pay and conditions, rigid leadership, [and] a lack of opportunity to share opinions and to progress careers".

[citation needed] Police Auxiliary Officers who are tasked with protective service duties are authorised to carry a firearm and Taser[26] and are equipped with telescopic batons, handcuffs, and Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) Spray.

Their main role is to attend and control violent situations, riots, to assist police officers requesting backup when none is available locally, or as an immediate response to serious emergencies, such as armed offenders (firearms) incidents, domestic violence, and related offences.

[citation needed] Regional Operations Group officers undergo intensive public-order training and typically carry extra equipment whenever they are on duty.

Training includes tactical roping, fieldcraft, water borne operations, paramedical courses, the use of chemical, biological and radiological equipment, self-contained breathing apparatus and various weapons systems.

[48] The TRG has in recent times also expanded its capability to respond to counter-terrorist and high-risk incidents in a maritime environment including specialist divers, swimmers and the ability to board ships and oil/gas platforms.

The plane was returning from Kiwirrkurra, on the edge of the Gibson Desert, when the aircraft's engines failed due to fuel starvation on the approach to Newman airstrip.

Filmmaker Cornel Ozies, who made a documentary about the station called Our Law and shown at the 2020 Sydney Film Festival, puts the success of the program down to four things: "respect, understanding, communication, and education".

[64] The specific circumstances surrounding Finn's death, including her alleged sighting at the canteen bar of the WA Police headquarters in East Perth shortly before her murder,[65] have never been officially disclosed, despite several purported investigations and a Royal Commission.

The inquest returned an open finding with Coroner Barry King closing with the announcement that there had been "incompetence" in the police investigation and that there were "too many suspects", while vital evidence had "disappeared", including the murder weapon and the victim's luxury car.

The 2002 Kennedy Royal Commission investigated the February 1988 death of 18-year-old Stephen Wardle, who died whilst in custody in the East Perth lockup.

It concluded in 2004, finding that "...the full range of corrupt or criminal conduct from stealing to assaults, perjury, drug dealing and the improper disclosure of confidential information have been examined.

[73]: 1–2  The fact that there remain in WAPS a number of officers who participated in this conduct, and who not only refused to admit it, but also uniformly denied it with vehemence, is a matter of concern.

[79] In handing down his not guilty verdict, Justice Martin was critical of some police actions, stating that "there were instances of unacceptable conduct by some investigators ranging from inappropriate to reprehensible".

[83] An April 2014 report of the Western Australian Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) cleared two police officers of any serious misconduct in the Rayney murder investigation.

A second matter reviewed by the CCC related to "attempts by a third officer to encourage an independent pathologist involved in the case to change a report to better fit police evidence.

"[84] In September 2014, lawyer and former State Governor, Malcolm McCusker, supported calls for an independent review, and also a CCC investigation of "claims that police manufactured evidence to incriminate ... Lloyd Rayney".

Later the same year, Lloyd Rayney sued one of the lead forensic investigators on the case for allegedly making defamatory comments at a seminar at Curtin University in 2014.

"[89] A clemency petition drafted by the eminent barrister Malcolm McCusker, and lodged with the Western Australian Attorney-General in 2012, alleged that "key evidence was planted, withheld and misrepresented" in police investigations leading to a 2009 murder trial in which Scott Douglas Austic was found guilty and sentenced to a minimum 25-year jail term.

[98] On 12 April 2017, Gene Gibson, an illiterate and mentally impaired 25-year-old Aboriginal man, was released from prison by an appeals court after unjustly serving five years of a manslaughter sentence.

Gibson, who was 20 when charged with a two-year-old unsolved murder, was interviewed for many hours by two junior detectives without benefit of an interpreter or legal counsel, which ultimately led to a fake confession and wrongful conviction.

[99] Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan apologised for the investigative failure, but disclosed the three officers "had not accepted blame and would now face an internal disciplinary process".

[100] In November 2008, Robert Cunningham, an Associate Law Professor, and his wife Catherine Atoms, were tasered by WA Police officers during an arrest following an incident outside the Esplanade Hotel in Fremantle.

Police Internal Affairs investigators found that, between October 2008 and May 2010, on a number of occasions, the Sergeant and Senior Constable misused tasers against other members of staff, including females, during bizarre initiation and farewell ceremonies to the station.

[104] It was further found that the officers had helped to form an "unacceptable culture" at the station, where "junior staff felt unable to bring matters of concern to the attention of more senior police".

[104] On 31 August 2008, Kevin Spratt, a 39-year-old Aboriginal man, was tasered twice whilst in custody at the East Perth Watchhouse, later being charged with refusing a strip search.

[108] On 6 September 2008, Spratt suffered a dislocated shoulder, fractured ribs, and a collapsed lung in prison following a "cell extraction" wherein he was tasered eleven times by Emergency Support Group officers from the Department of Corrective Services.

[112] On 27 November 2010, an off-duty Senior Constable in WA Police's Specialist Enforcement and Operations Team, Matthew Gerard Owen Pow, was charged with two counts of committing an act causing danger or bodily harm and two counts of assault causing bodily harm, after allegedly tying a rope across a Karawara path, known to be used by motorbike riders at night.

[114] In February 2019, ABC news reported that WA Police Senior Constable, Nathan Robert Trenberth, was filmed repeatedly punching a 20-year-old man in the head during the Sky Show celebrations.