There are racists in Melbourne, admits Oz cop

In a candid admission in the wake ofa spate of attacks on Indians in Australia, a top Victorian police official said on Saturday thatthere were racists in Melbourne and the issue needed to be discussed to tacklean upswing in street crime, the brunt of which is being borne by Indians.

"Part of that (statement) isbeing absolutely upfront about every society having racism and racists,"Victorian Deputy Police Commissioner Ken Jones was quoted as saying by TheAustralian.

However, he said racism was not endemic in this city. "Wehave got murderers and rapists, but for a developed country, less than ourshare. We've got less than our share of racists, but we have got them.

"The more we can be accurate inour discussion... the more likely we are to be able to focus on that smallelement of society and prosecute it," he said. "The more scattergunour commentary and approach is, we are offending an awful lot of peopleunnecessarily."

Ken said Indians were "bearingthe brunt" of an upswing in violent street crime in Melbourne.

He said it was the result of thetypes of jobs and hours of work and how and when they travel, rather than a surgein racial tension, which would have expected to be accompanied by more activityfrom hate groups and by racist graffiti.

Indians should not be blamed forbeing in the wrong place at the wrong time, Ken said. "The fact we havegot morons out there waiting to attack people who happen to be wanderingthrough a park late at night is a problem for us all," Ken, a former topcop in Britain, said.

He further said that "if weamplify the problem, we are more likely to get inaccurate policy responses aswell as fear of crime that doesn't match reality."

"There is crime out there. Weneed to address it and we are addressing it. But we need to address it in atargeted way. We're not going to do that if perception either wildlyunder-estimates or over-estimates the real threat."

The immediate aim, Ken said, is toensure his investigators find the killer or killers of 21-year-old Indian youthNitin Garg, the Punjab-born accountancy graduate who was stabbed to death in apark in Melbourne's west two weeks ago.

The longer term task is"closing the gap" between public perceptions and the reality ofcrime, he said.

Having worked in England, then informer Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, Los Angeles and Delhi, Ken claimed thatMelbourne has an extremely low crime rate for a major city.