Operation Ares in Albury

The Border Mail

(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.

Transcript

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

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