(Photo Mark Jesser) Albury
Operation Ares, being conducted in the Albury/Lavington area. The high visibility operation in which officers used handheld scanners – or electronic metal-detecting ‘wands’ – to reduce knife crime and boost community safety.
Operation Ares, being conducted in the Albury/Lavington area. The high visibility operation in which officers used handheld scanners – or electronic metal-detecting ‘wands’ – to reduce knife crime and boost community safety.
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NewsTranscript
00:00We're here today, we've got some new legislation in relation to knife crime.
00:05We've been running a high visibility operation here in the CBD yesterday,
00:10yesterday in Lavington today and it's all about public safety. We'll get into a
00:18bit of detail about the results but I think this is a timely reminder. You
00:23can't carry a knife around in public unless you have a reasonable excuse.
00:27Self-protection is not a reasonable excuse. We find a lot of criminals do
00:31carry knives and this legislation is about removing knives from the public
00:36and public safety.
00:39Is this a first for Albury? Is it a good operation to be running in town?
00:43100%. This is the first for Albury, first for Lavington and other places across the PD will see this
00:49operation. Legislation rolled out in December. Although we've always had
00:55the power to search with reasonable cause, this legislation gives us power to
00:59search across the board with wands as we've seen today.
01:04Can you tell us where abouts officers are targeting? Is it streets? Is it back streets as well?
01:09Designated areas where we have had knife crime incidents and they obviously have
01:14concern to us. It's all about public safety and those of you in the
01:20community who do get searched, don't be concerned. Go to our public page on our
01:25website. You'll find knife crime, a QR code you can scan and it'll tell you all
01:31about the operation.
01:33You said it's been pretty successful thus far. Can we expect to see an operation like this be run again soon?
01:38100%. Anything we can do to make our community safer, we'll invest in.
01:43So does that mean it's sort of something you'd be doing once a month or once a fortnight?
01:48I think we'll be doing it where needs are to do it and certainly if we
01:55have incidents or concern about knife crime, we'll be using this legislation.
01:59Do you think we have a problem with knife crime in Albury?
02:02Listen, anyone carrying a knife is a concern to me. We certainly and unfortunately have
02:09had incidents of stabbings across not only Albury but across our whole PD in
02:14different areas. If we can make the place safer, that's what it's all about.
02:18In relation to carrying a knife, I guess there's a lot of people particularly off the land
02:24and so on that might say, well I've got the knife for hunting and that sort of thing.
02:28Where does that fit in with this new law?
02:31Certainly there will be cases where there is a reasonable excuse to have possession of a knife,
02:35whether that be in the course of employment or whatever. However, you do need a legitimate
02:42excuse to be carrying a knife and in the CBD of Albury, there's probably pretty limited
02:47times when you could justify that.
02:49So if you've got it and you said, oh it's for hunting and that sort of thing and you're
02:54just visiting town, then...
02:56I'd say you'd be getting a ticket for carrying a knife.
02:59Is it...
03:00No, listen, it's the penalty for carrying a knife, $11,000 or four years imprisonment
03:06depending on the circumstances of course and other charges could flow as well.
03:12For more information visit www.fema.gov