Tag Melbourne

Melbourne transport officers: the ‘Gestapo’ or the ‘Miami Vice’ experience

freshlyworded 1 Comment

My wife and I now live in Melbourne, but a couple of years ago we were just visiting from Sydney on holiday.

We caught a tram from Essendon (a suburb north west of the Melbourne CBD) into the city for some sightseeing and lunch. My wife had a concession card because she was a student in Sydney at the time and so she bought a concession ticket on the tram. I bought a normal adult ticket.

The tram trundled on towards the city. A little while later two men got on and sat opposite us on the tram.

One of the men was bald or had a closely-shaved head, was wearing sun-glasses, a white t-shirt jeans and a zipped-up beige leather jacket looking as if he’d just finished shooting a scene from Miami Vice (you remember the 1980s cops show with Don Johnson).

He looked at us.

We looked at him.

The tram continued on its way.

A few minutes later, he nonchalantly unzipped his jacket to reveal an FBI-like badge dangling from his neck and announces to us and the tram: “Melbourne transport police – ticket inspection”.

We got into trouble because though my wife had a valid New South Wales student card it was not valid in Victoria (Australia’s different state rules are a topic for a whole separate blog post) so she was not actually entitled to a student discount on the fare.

We explained that we were visiting and were unaware that my wife was not allowed a student ticket.

Mr Miami Vice believed us and we got off with a warning rather than a hefty fine.

But the incident stuck in my head principally because of the demeanour and dress of the undercover ticket inspector, who had clearly watched too many cop shows.

He was a ridiculous caricature and I always laugh at the memory of him coolly unzipped his leather jacket to reveal his Melbourne transport officer badge.

As I mentioned earlier, we now live in Melbourne and I have come to experience, vicariously anyway, the other persona of the train and tram transport police.

They’re officially called “authorised officers” and employed by the Victorian government.

They wear uniforms and demeanours that remind me of the Gestapo or maybe the secret police of East Germany with a twist of a 1980s fashion faux pas thrown in as well.

Their jackets are made of grey plastic-like material with black trimming and they usually roam the trains in packs, wearing scowls.

If you live in Melbourne and ride the train or trams regularly, you will more than likely have encountered them.

Now I’ll say upfront that some of them are courteous and wear a smile, but many of them are surely picked for their menacing looks and deadly stares.

Like the secret police, they enjoy playing mind games by boarding the train, huddling at the entrance and doing nothing but looking across at the passengers until at some point (perhaps a signal transmitted directly to the brain) and they announce “ticket inspection, please have your tickets ready”.

Invariably there is someone who does not have a ticket.

Immediately they are surrounded by a group of ticket inspectors who begin the interrogation. Everyone looks, you can’t help yourself.

Then they escort the passenger off the train and as it pulls out the station you stare out the window and see the poor passenger surrounded by these figures in grey and black with notepads, glares and fingers pointing.

And there’s a part of you that wonders if these passengers will ever be seen or heard from again, especially if they refuse to comply or provide adequate proof of identification.

Perhaps it’s just coincidence, perhaps it’s the case the most people who fare evade are minorities with a darker shade of skin colour, but seems that if you’re a person of colour you’re more than likely to be hauled off the train by an authorised officer and asked to provide incontrovertible proof of who you are.

Not speaking english or being a teenager are too other reasons to be attract their attention.

Lately there have been a lot of inspections on the Craigieburn line – the line I ride every week day – sometimes during rush hour, but always once the train has emptied out and we’re heading into the suburbs.

Once a bald, nasty-looking inspector tried to put the fear of God into two teenage boys who were sitting with their skate-boards and baseball caps turned the wrong way round.

“How will you feel if I told your parents you got a $70 fine…” were the words I distinctly heard him utter with the kindness of a rattlesnake.

Scouring the internet I have come across some disturbing evidence which confirms that there certainly are some bad eggs in the ranks of Melbourne’s authorised officers.

I found an ABC news broadcast from 2010 showing authorised officers assaulting passengers in a bulletin called “Melbourne’s thuggish ticket inspectors”.

Digging further I found it was based on a damning report by the Victorian ombudsman, which found that in around 30,000 instances where infringement notices were issued, nearly half were withdrawn.

The report also provides a number of examples of what has happened to some commuters who have found themselves under attack from these rogue officers including this case:

Incident 1: 9 March 2010 – Ringwood Railway Station

On 9 March 2010 an authorised officer in plain clothes pushed two youths from a moving train onto the platform at the Ringwood Railway Station. This incident was anonymously reported to the department. The officer was part of a four person patrol. The officer resigned. Following a police investigation, the officer was charged with two counts of recklessly causing injury. File notes disclosed that the officer admitted in his pre-authorisation interview to having a speeding fine; obtaining a learner permit by making a false statement; obtaining an identity card by lying; and shoplifting.

You can watch what happened via this CCTV footage provided by the ombudsman.

There are numerous other examples in the report.

Anyway, you should know your rights if you end up in the hands of an authorised officer.

They are summarised here on the Public Transport Victoria website.

If you get hauled off the train, always ask to see their badge and ID and write down their names.

Make a note of any threats made against you and never hand over any money.

Always keep in mind that authorised officers are required under law to act with the “highest degree of integrity and professionalism” at all times”

This applies whether they are acting out a Miami Vice fantasy or dressed like a character from the Gestapo.

Should we ban the hoodie instead of the burka?

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Is there a modern piece of attire with the potential to be more sinister than the ordinary hoodie?

I’ve been asking myself this question since reading about the tragic abduction, rape and murder of Irishwomen Jill Meagher.

CCTV footage showed a man – the same man now accused of her murder – wearing a blue hoodie as he talked (more likely bothered) Meagher as she tried to stumble home on drunken high-heels, her last fateful journey

The footage shows he does not actually have the hoodie over his face when he was captured on camera talking to Jill Meagher but, no doubt he wore it before or after his heinous deed.

Ironically, if he had worn the hoodie at the time he was captured on CCTV, he might not have been caught so swiftly.

People go on about the need to ban the burka (as it already is in France), fuelling a lot of religious anger and questions about freedom of expression, but I personally have never felt intimidated by someone wearing a burka.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t like the burka. I find them repressive and unpleasant, but not menacing.

Consider this scenario.

You’re walking home at night. It’s after midnight. There’s no one out on the streets. Houses are dead and quiet. Then you hear footsteps and notice someone is now walking behind you…they’re wearing a hoodie and there is face is hidden in shadow.

How would you feel? Safe? Would you pick up the pace? Maybe phone someone on your mobile phone? Your heart-beat would certainly be racing.

Since the murder of  Jill Meagher, well-known writer, comic and blogger, Catherine Deveney has come out and said that she was too attacked by a man wearing a blue hoodie on Sydney Road, possibly by the same person.

It seems the hoodie is often linked with criminal activity.

You put it over your head before you rob the convenience store; before you king hit someone; before you throw a rock at the police in a riot; to hide your face as you spray graffiti on a public space, or as you flee the scene of a crime.

The hoodie shields the face, the eyes and the intentions of the wearer.

Interestingly, I have discovered that hoodies have been banned in the past, though the move was controversial with libertarians screaming out about human rights, freedom of expression and unfairly targeting young people.

It happened in Belmont, a suburb in the Hunter region of NSW, about 20 kilometres out from Newcastle, where a ban on hoodies was introduced in 2010 in the shopping district to “combat young teenage boys defacing the property”.

“The ban was introduced because young teenagers were using jackets with hoods to hide their identity while doing graffiti,” reported the Newcastle Herald.

According to the report, during the first three weeks of the ban, there was no graffiti.

It’s not the only example.

In June last year Brisbane police launched a ‘Hoodie Free Zone’ initiative in the bayside suburb of Wynnum following a series of armed robberies, where the criminals wore hoodies to disguise their identities.

Shopkeepers were encouraged to ask hoodie-wearers to leave.

More recently hoodies were worn by many London rioters last year as they smashed shop windows and looted goods. They also wore hoodies as they threw rocks at police.

Interestingly hoodies have a religious origin (I keep thinking of creepy cultish ceremonies out in the woods somewhere), dating back to medieval Europe when they were worn by monks.

Hoodies entered popular culture in the US in the 1930s when clothes maker Champion started making them for workers as protection from the cold. They became an iconic piece of clothing following the release of the movie Rocky in the 1970s, where Sylvester Stallone wears them in his training scenes.

And of course they’ve been embraced by hip-hop stars and fake Burberry-wearing “chavs” in the UK.

Which is all very interesting, but it does not get away from the fact that wearing a hoodie, especially at night, has the potential to make even the most well-intentioned person appear to be a suspicious, sinister character.

So I maintain if we’re going to ban or put limits on any kind of clothing, perhaps it should be the hoodie, not the burka.

(Author confession: I own a couple of jerseys with hoods. In my defence, I never really wear the hood, certainly never at night and never with any criminal intention. Hey, I’d give them up if asked.)

My obsession with New York-style coffee

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There’s a little Starbucks that’s opened across from Flinders Station, a tiny kiosk of a shop, and while I have, in the past, sworn off such establishments, I have found myself ordered my morning coffee there most mornings before work since it opened a few weeks ago.

Why go to Starbucks?

After all Australia is a country that takes its coffee-making extremely seriously, and some over here might even suggest – oh the blasphemy! – that Australian’s could teach Italians a thing or two about a good coffee, that’s after Italian immigrants taught us how to make it in the first place.

But since visiting New York last year and drinking a lot of cheap “drip” coffee , I am drawn to the brewed coffee they sell at Starbucks.

It’s cheap too – $2.90 for a “grande”, as opposed to the $5 I paid when I made the mistake of ordering a “large” cappucino in the little art deco kiosk in the underground arcade under Flinders Street. The barista behind the counter (tattoos, laid-back, shuffling along like he’s doing the moon walk, makes coffee like he was born in front of an espresso machine) did point out the large cup as if to make sure I really wanted it before nonchalantly asking that I hand over five bucks.

(It’s the kind of place, where people sort out their own change. While I was waiting for my drink, a guy stuck a $20 buck note under an empty coffee cup that serves as the till and helped himself to a $10 and $5 note – a little too la de da for me!)

But back to New York and drip coffee.

It’s a one dimensional drink, it has none of the richness and flavour of a proper Australian coffee (I am always amazed at the consistently good standard of coffee in even the most ordinary, dreary café in Melbourne).

Drip coffee is bland, boring, quite watery and invariably served so hot you peel off a layer of skin from the inside of your mouth when you drink it.

But drink it do – and as if I am Proust dipping Madeleine cake into tea – it all comes back to me.

I am sitting in a working class café, on a stool at a bench by the window looking out onto a grubby street in Brooklyn, eating the purplest blueberry bagel you could imagine, wrapped in wax paper.

The bread is chewy and warm and almost violet in colour, flowing with rivers of dark blueberry and topped with about a whole philadelphia-tub’s worth of cream cheese.

It was a sweet moment – the uncool, coolness of Brooklyn (liquor stores with the neon signs in the window, old ladies in scarves pulling their groceries in wire trolleys, old-fashioned bookshops, terrace housing, an air of decrepitude, but distinctly New Yorkan, with Manhattan off somewhere in the distance).

I savoured that bagel. Man did I savour it. Like I was De Niro in a Scorcese flick. Or maybe a character in a Woody Allen film, the neurotic jew about to see his analyst.

Sipping my coffee, biting chunks out of the bagel. browsing a pile of magazines at the window, looking out at Brooklynites passing by…

And so I find myself queuing outside Starbucks on the corner of Flinders and Elizabeth in downtown Melbourne.

There’s a little bit (a tiny, tiny bit) of New York in Melbourne. The yellow taxi cabs for one rushing by and occassionally hooting. People huddled against the cold. The underground subway behind me leading into the train station. The high-rise towers down Elizabeth Street and up towards the Paris end of Collins Street.

Three times they have got my order wrong at Starbucks. Twice they’ve told me they have run out of brewed coffee and yet I come back.

Carry my steaming mug of blandness across the street, remembering Brooklyn, the bagel and the coffee and how I felt.

Now if only I could find a decent bagel store.