by Sahar Foladi
The new Southern Metro Region Assistant Commissioner is set to further his extensive years in Victoria Police.
Chris Gilbert just started off in Greater Dandenong as the new Assistant Commissioner for the Southern region, after he spent more than 33 years of service in a handful of roles.
“I’m still finding my way around the area and I’m very impressed with what I see particularly with police personnel here.
“I’ve encountered very happy and committed staff working in this area,” he said.
“I’m encouraged that they have very strong relationship with the community, and we’ve seen that through recent community events.”
As anti-social behaviours and hoon events became the frustration of residents throughout 2023, there’s a hope that operations such as Achilles and operation Hades will help to bring some peace to residents.
“What we’ve seen through that is significant reduction in high risk driving events particularly hooning events, so we know that Operation Achilles has worked very well.
“We have a very keen eye on hoon driving behaviour because road trauma is incredibly important for us to reduce.”
There were 289 lives lost on Victorian roads last year as Victoria Police raised alarms over the holiday period.
As reported previously by Star Journal in November 2023, Operation Hades saw a crackdown on hooning activities along with high risk driving among others.
Over the two-day operation 345 issues were identified, including 79 defective vehicles, more than $50,000 fines issues and rows of impounded cars.
“We run these kinds of operations very frequently not just in Dandenong but whole region so that’s a very good example just to demonstrate that we are out there listening and focusing on the risks to road safety from hoons.
“We’re very clear that road trauma is completely avoidable, so our focus is helping people understand when they drive, that their decision making will largely be the difference between a road trauma or not.”
Although Operations Achilles was launched in February 2021 in response to increased hooning activities, the issue remained at large.
The Springvale Mega Mart shopping centre was brought under the police radar just after a year of the operation in progress.
As reported previously in March by Star Journal, nearby sleepless neighbours complained of the “shotgun” like noises.
“Overall, people do a very god job but it’s really up to everybody to try and contribute.
“For those who don’t want to do that, we’ll continue with the operations we have people out there enforcing road rules.”
Anti-social behaviours such as robbery, house break-ins are also of major concerns to the Greater Dandenong community however Mr Gilbert says there have been reductions in offences of that kind.
“We look at some other indicators in what that looks like, and we know in the Greater Dandenong area included, we’ve seen some very good drop-offs in offending types such as robbery over the last few months.
“We’ve also seen reduction in burglary of businesses,” he said.
“We’re seeing reductions in offences and I think that’s actually from understanding where some of those behaviours are occurring.”
Businesses finding it challenging in Dandenong CBD are also advised to flag any ongoing issues with the Neighbourhood Policing program.
“It’s very important for council and local business concerned about ongoing issues to raise the issue with the register,” Mr Gilbert said.
“That can help us to be more focused on where we do our patrolling.
“We work in a large area but we have sufficient resources to be able to respond.
“Whilst we may not get to everything immediately, the community should be reasonably confident that we will respond to serious incidents in all occasions and if there’s no immediate result these do go to other investigations which may take longer to resolve but there’s certainly no lack of attention to those.”
As summer rolls out, residents are strongly advised to play their part and ensure cars and homes are locked.
“One of our important messages currently is for people to ensure not to leave valuables in the car and their car is locked.
“We’re seeing far too many incidents where cars are stolen, the cars are not locked, and valuables are visible in the car,” he said.
“Generally, we find that if residents take those steps, they won’t have their houses broken into.
“That’s something we’d like the community to work with us on.”
Along with the experiences and awards that come with his extensive career in Victoria Police, Mr Gilbert added a King’s Birthday honour in 2023 to his list of achievements as one of the six officers recognised.
The award recognised his contribution to community safety, intelligence and covert policing among a few as he led the Victoria Police’s Intelligence and Covert Support Command.
