EXCLUSIVE: There are few people better placed to speak about the impact of knife crime than the family of Vyleen White.
The 70-year-old great-grandmother was fatally stabbed in the chest at a shopping centre carpark in Redbank Plains on February 3.
“It happens so quick, you know, lives are changed like that,” Vyleen White’s daughter Cindy Micallef said.
“This child’s never going to be the same again, our family is never going to be the same again.”
“One day she’s there, one day she’s gone, and this is what we deal with every day now, the whole lot of us,” Vyleen’s husband Victor White told 9News.
“That day when I heard for the very first time I was in probably a state of shock. It wasn’t reality,” he said.
The 70-year-old’s shocking death happened just six months before the expansion of Jack’s Law to shopping centres, allowing police to scan people for weapons without a warrant.
This week in Ipswich, police officers from Operation Whiskey Legion descended on several shopping centres and train stations to search for knives.
One of Vyleen White’s family members works at one of the shopping centres where knives and dangerous drugs were found and alleged criminals on outstanding warrants were arrested.
9News was invited inside the operation.
“It is about keeping the community safe, it is about holding perpetrators to account and making sure the vulnerable in our community are protected,” Queensland Police Service Spokesperson Leon Marshall said.
Marshall said officers found a raft of different edged and concealed weapons.
In one search, police allegedly found a flick knife and a packet appearing to contain marijuana.
Another search uncovered what officers said were small crystals in a clip-seal bag.
Three dangerous weapons were seized across the four-day operation.
White’s family said they hoped the wanding operations could save lives in the future.
“The more police you have it puts people on notice if I’m carrying a knife I could get caught any minute here,” Victor White said.
“Hopefully it will save lives getting these knives off the streets,” Micallef said.
The family wants to see wanding operations expand even further
“Personally I reckon Jack’s law should be extended to all schools now, because that’s where the crime starts, from the schools,” White said.
Since Jack’s Law was passed, police have seized more than 1000 weapons across the state.
In Ipswich, 127 people were nabbed and charged with over 200 offences, and with Operation Whiskey Legion deployed, those numbers are only set to grow.
“They’re great statistics, but how many do we not know about?” Micallef said.
“That’s the problem, if this is just a small snippet of what’s out there in the community then god help us.”
Police say wanding patrols will increase in the coming months, and issued a warning to those carrying knives.
“What I can say to the people of Ipswich is that our officers are out there, we are conducting their operations we will hold these perpetrators to account,” Marshall said.
“You do not need it for your own safety, you do not need it for any other purpose. It is against the law and if you are caught carrying such weapons you will be prosecuted.”
“We can’t have what happened to Mum happen to anybody else,” Micallef said.
“It’s just a life-changing, life-ruining moment and you never get those people back.”
