By TOM HAYES
POLICE were in their numbers at Morwell’s Mid Valley Shopping Centre last Friday (October 4) afternoon, as Operation OMNI was underway.
Police searched 98 people, seizing four knives and one small bag of methylamphetamine.
There was also one occurrence of Hinder Police, as five offenders (two youths, three adults) were interviewed and are to be charged via summons.
“Operation OMNI is an operation approved by the assistant commissioner of the eastern region regarding the Control of Weapons Act designated area for searching,” Latrobe Crime Investigation Unit Detective Sergeant, Mick Van Der Heyden explained.
“We have identified that Mid Valley and the surrounding car parks and bordering roads have had, what we believe, significant violent offences in the last 12 months.”
Lasting for just six hours between 2pm and 8pm, police were conducting random searches on the public, looking for weapons and other illegal instruments.
Mid Valley was recognised as a hot spot for crime, after numerous records of dangerous activity taking place, including an assault on an elderly man by a group of five youths earlier this year.
Needing sufficient data from intelligence checks, reports and records to justify the application to the assistant commissioner, once confirmed, Operation OMNI was given the green light to proceed.
“It’s a two-pronged attack. It’s a general deterrent for people to bring knives and weapons to community locations like Mid Valley, but it’s also a public relations exercise where we can get some buy-in from the community to at least show them that we’re taking it seriously,” Det Serg Van Der Heyden said.
“We are lacking resources at times, but we are dedicating ourselves to investigating knife crime and deterring some of our youth offenders that have been causing some issues… and reassuring the public that we’re here.”
Positioned outside Dominos, police had a van stationed in the car park, resembling a home base of sorts, while multiple police cars were located throughout the car park, presenting a strong police presence.
Both uniformed and non-uniformed police patrolled the area, conducting searches on the public throughout the afternoon, also answering many questions that the public had to ask during the operation.
“Part of the legislation for the Control of Weapons Act – we have the power to conduct a search on any person within the designated area. It is at random, it isn’t targeted to any specific person, race or demographic,” Det Serg Van Der Heyden said.
The legislation allows police to stop, detain and search people using a metal detector. If the metal detector returned a positive reading, people were asked to produce the item, or the search could be escalated to a pat-down.
“I’d say 90 per cent of the public from what I’ve seen in the first few hours has been positive. But then there has been that 10 per cent that have been resistant to speak to us, however once we explain our search powers… everyone has co-operated,” Det Serg Van Der Heyden said during the operation.
He explained his aspirations to run the operation again in the Latrobe Valley, but added there was complications.
“I’d hope that we can do it again. It’s a bit of a catch-22, because to enable us to do it we need to meet certain criteria about these locations being identified as having violent crime occurring,” Det Serg Van Der Heyden said.
“Whilst ideally we don’t want that occurring, if we can identify a location where it is occurring, then that would be something we’ll be putting forward at local level.”
