By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
Rising mob violence around Dandenong’s Civic Square has seen one youth stabbed and others bashed and king-hit.
Last Tuesday afternoon, police took more than an hour to disperse a 60-strong aggressive gathering of students from three high schools in the Civic Square area.
The incident followed a similar violent gathering on Friday 6 March during which a 15-year-old Endeavour Hills boy was stabbed multiple times.
Last week, the council announced a two-week trial of extra unarmed security guards at its civic centre, while police have stepped up patrols.
However, Councillor Peter Brown, who witnessed some of the trouble, said more needed to be done to quell the situation.
He said security personnel should show zero tolerance for the anti-social behaviour before someone “ends up in the morgue”.
Cr Brown said the council should allocate some of its “huge budget” towards supporting the police.
He said guards may need to be armed, especially if young people were carrying weapons into the civic precinct.
“We have created a (library and civic square) which is very beautiful.
“The last thing parents with young kids want to go through is these warring groups.
“We just have to get the message across to these young people – we’re not going to let you wreck something we’ve worked hard to create for you and the rest of the community.”
Cr Brown said “brazen” youths had been making territorial claims in front of the Civic Centre’s library, citing several incidents in recent weeks.
“If we have to have armed security guards, we should use them. If threats are made to security personnel we should take no hostages – it should be zero tolerance.
“My instinct is it could be a turf war. We don’t want them to turn Dandenong into a little favela.”
Greater Dandenong chief executive John Bennie, who has recently expressed a preferred “zero-tolerance” approach to anti-social behaviour, said the incidents in the civic precinct “fall into the category of nuisance behaviour rather than more serious crime”.
He said a security review of the precinct undertaken in December had found a “range of proposals to improve security”.
The trial of extra security guards would be re-assessed with police in two weeks, he said.
Police local area commander Inspector Bruce Kitchen said patrols of the area had been since increased in known Dandenong hot spots such as near Dandenong railway station, the former library and the civic centre.
He said police would exclude and move people on.
Those tactics were successfully used to drive out troublemakers at Mills Reserve recently, he said.
“The message I want to get out is police won’t tolerate anti-social behaviour.”
