Police blitz a well-behaved Kings Cross
The thin blue line was a lot thicker last weekend as police blitzed Sydney’s streets in Operation Unite, which targeted ‘anti-social behaviour’ across Australia and New Zealand.
At times in Kings Cross late on Friday night there seemed to be more police than punters, in every shade of blue – regular police, Riot Squad, plain clothes officers, mounted police, police vehicles of all shapes and sizes and frequent sniffer dog patrols.
We settled into our favourite kerbside drinking and people-watching spot and waited for the action to unfold. But the extraordinary police presence meant there wasn’t much action.
While this made for a peaceful evening, most police looked slightly bored, even with a visual feast of people dressed in crazy Christmas gear including one guy in a Little Britain fat suit. Earlier in the evening, one group in creative theatrical getups had drawn a spontaneous round of applause from drinkers outside the Sugarmill Hotel. A friendly trio of police posed for pictures with one costumed partygoer.
Later, a carload of young people cruised into the Cross with windows open and loud music playing. They were immediately pounced on by three Highway Patrol police who stopped them and read them the riot act. But even this was a rare occurrence – recent police and Council blockades of Macleay Street seemed to have driven off many of the modified cars as well as ordinary vehicles – traffic was relatively sparse.
Several police in navy overalls and baseball caps surrounded a man sitting on a bench and searched him and his bag, for no apparent reason. He had not been behaving “anti-socially” and nothing was found in the search, so the police moved on and the man remained on his bench. A Daily Telegraph photographer embedded with the police unit jumped around shooting the whole thing from every angle while an Inspector watched. It seemed the search may have been set-piece media fodder.
A young officer fresh out of Goulburn then saw me taking photographs and challenged me, asking “What are you taking pictures of?”
“Anything I like,” I replied.
“You’re not allowed to do that,” he said.
“Yes I am.”
“You know that for a fact, do you?”
I told him I did and pointed out the Telegraph lensman. He explained it was possible someone might recognise him from my pictures and target him when he was off duty. He needn’t have worried – I hadn’t snapped him in the first place.
That night, St Vincent’s Hospital reported no facial or fist injuries, a rare occurrence.
Rail line closed
CityRail picked the busiest weekend of the year to close the eastern line for trackwork, leaving thousands stranded on busy Saturday night. With no trains running and Macleay Street blockaded one-way at Woolloomooloo, all other approaches to the Cross were jam-packed with cars and pedestrians. A vast gridlock extended along William Street to the city and south along Darlinghurst Road to Oxford Street. Darlinghurst residents report that residential Surrey Street has became a late-night rat run into Kings Cross. Cabs around the city were refusing to take people to the Cross, creating conflict – a great recipe for the “booze-fuelled violence” the police are talking up.
by Michael Gormly
