TACKLING A KNIFE CRIME EPIDEMIC
KNIFE crime is on the rise but it is not just on the Gold Coast. What has been happening in the tourism capital mirrors a surge in people carrying blades, and unfortunately using them with tragic consequences in the United Kingom and America.
Back in September 2020 when the fourth – and latest – fatal Gold Coast stabbing in 15 months took place South Eastern Police Regional Crime Coordinator Brendan Smith was angry, at his wits end and incredulous that there had not been more deaths or serious injury given the extent of knife crime on the Gold Coast.
The roll call of young lives taken through senseless alleged stabbings – Harrison Geppert, 17, Jack Beasley, 17, Nicholas Braid, 35, and Raymond Harris, 27 – is a stain on the city but unfortunately part of an international trend of carrying blades being blamed on social media, dark music, kids being fearful and lacking trust in authorities to protect them.
Harrison died from a stab wound at a popular Gold Coast dog park. Jack died in hospital soon after he was rushed there when he collapsed from being stabbed on Surfers Paradise Boulevard out the front of the IGA and across the road from shocked diners in the early evening in December 2019. Nicholas died on the pavement in Surfers Paradise outside the Beach Comber resort hotel while Raymond Harris died on Cavill Avenue in Surfers Paradise after allegedly being stabbed with what police described as a “Rambo” knife.
It has been over a year since Jack’s death which has spurred his griefstricken parents to start the Jack Beasley Foundation to educate youth about the dangers of knife crime.
Police have instituted wanding to check those riding trams and in popular tourist hubs for concealed weapons. But as Det. Supt Smith has acknowleded to the Bulletin extreme consequences of alleged knife crime needs sheeted home by people young people listen to because it is a cultural change that needs to happen.
“The Gold Coast in the main is an extremely safe place. (But) I think there needs to be conversation among people of that age … they are not going to listen to me, or older people, it needs to come from their peers. They need to hear that from their peers.
“The gangster attitude needs to change. We have said it 1000 times, young Jack Beasley, the young fellow Geppert at the park, we’ve had four or five deaths from knife crime. But there has been a number of other incidents where people have been stabbed and just through share luck are still with us.
“It’s an attitude thing. We need these people’s peers to say this is not on. We had success over the years around drink driving making it socially unacceptable.”