Former Victoria Police chief wants water cannon to stop rampages

Kel Glare says Victoria Police need to rethink how they deal with African youth riots and extremist clashes.

Former Victoria Police chief commissioner Kel Glare.

A former Victoria Police commissioner has called for the state’s force to be provided with a water cannon to deal with large-scale ­violence, after police came under attack during a rampage at a house party and did not make arrests.

Kel Glare, commissioner between 1987 and 1992, blasted Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton’s comments defending Victoria Police’s handling of a series of violent parties at Airbnb properties across the city.

Scores of youths attended a Werribee Airbnb property on Tuesday night where the home was trashed. The youths allegedly turned on police when they ­arrived, resulting in one officer suffering a minor elbow injury.

Victoria Police’s investigation into the brawl is ongoing but it is yet to make arrests.

Victoria’s crime rate has ­become a hot-button political issue during the course of Premier Daniel Andrews’ tenure and the level of youth crime, particularly among recent migrants from ­Africa, has attracted considerable attention. The most recent crime statistics, however, show a marked drop in the crime rate, with Victoria’s Crime Statistics Agency ­recording a 4.9 per cent fall in the number of offences in the year to October, led by substantial decreases in car thefts and burglaries.

Tuesday’s incident has re­ignited concerns Victoria Police struggles with large-scale rampages and riots after clashes broke out last month in Kensington in Melbourne ­between far-right supports of British conservative “superstar” Milo Yiannopoulos and far-left protesters.

Mr Glare said the time was “fast approaching” for Victoria Police to follow its NSW and Queensland counterparts’ lead and invest in a water cannon.

“You need to see if it could get out quickly for events like Tuesday night but for planned protests and riots, like the Milo ones, it could be very useful in breaking up violence ... something has to be done,” he said.

Mr Glare said he was surprised to hear no arrests were made at the scene and that police were not making clear the link between gang violence and African youth.

“You can’t fix the problem until you’ve clearly identified it ... the chief commissioner talks about human rights but what about the human rights of the victims?”

Mr Patton told 3AW radio yesterday that the decision to disperse the Werribee crowd rather than make any arrests on the scene was the right one: “Victoria Police is not soft, we do use the appropriate force, but we have to balance ­people’s human rights.”

He said “different sections of the community” would oppose the police using water cannons.

Mr Patton is filling in for the state’s top cop, Graham Ashton, who is on leave because of physical and mental fatigue.

The Werribee house was scrawled with tags linked to the notorious Apex gang and a new African youth group called “Menace to Society” but Mr Patton said he had no intelligence criminal gangs were involved.

Tuesday’s rampages have raised questions on whether gang violence is being revived in Melbourne’s South Sudanese community. South Sudanese youth leader and ex-chairman of the Nuer Youth Association Gatleuk Puoch said authorities had to do more to help African teens ­integrate.

“Parents struggle to discipline their children and keep them in school because they’re often illiterate and can’t give them the help with the school work or the advice they need,” he said.

“Kids coming to Australia are going straight into Year 8 when they’re not at that level intellectually. We need to make the schools more open to their needs.”

Victoria’s Labor government is not considering bringing in water cannons like the then-NSW Labor government did in 2006 a few months after the Cronulla race riots.

Police Minister Lisa Neville said officers had a mix of lethal and non-lethal weapons already.