By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
EXCLUSIVE/VIDEO: A NEW team of peacemakers will soon be patrolling Greater Dandenong’s streets with Victoria Police.
BJ Kour, an African youth outreach worker, is one of them. He doesn’t cop bad behaviour — from his peers or police officers. Mr Kour will be one of several ‘young leaders’ who are part of the south-east’s Police and Young Leaders Engagement Team (PYLET).
In a Victorian first, the leaders will be used as mediators to improve relations between police and young people of various cultural backgrounds.
It is part of a new “firm but fair” approach by the Safe Suburbs police taskforce, which covers Greater Dandenong, Casey and Cardinia.
Mr Kour, who has been a victim of heavy-handed policing, is keen to help good people on both sides who want to improve relations. He told the Journal how he was threatened by a police officer on a “routine check” soon after walking from a friend’s house about 1am in June 2011.
He says on another occasion he was frivolously charged by police with hindering the course of justice as he watched two young Africans being arrested in Noble Park. The charge was dropped before it got to court.
Last week, the chief commissioner of Victoria Police, Ken Lay acknowledged “some of our people have let us down”, after an out-of-court settlement between police and a group of African-Australians alleging “racial profiling” and over-policing against them. Mr Lay announced a review into police’s public relations and multicultural training.
On hearing the news, Mr Kour said he felt some relief that “things are going to change in the future”.
“The most important thing is that Ken Lay admits there is a problem. Now we can take this lesson and ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
Mr Kour said he would be joining police patrols at popular youth hangouts, as part of the PYLET program. He’ll be speaking to young African people, working as a mediator to build mutual trust with police.
If someone was arrested for public drunkenness, Mr Kour said he would be able to offer to drop them home as an alternative to a night in the cells. Community leaders may also be used to ease friction between police and revellers at large parties.
There were cultural things to learn on all sides, Mr Kour said. That young Africans dropped their gaze from authority figures was a sign of respect, not evasiveness, while four or five cousins together at a train station may not necessarily be a ‘gang’.
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