Ryan Bridge is lashing out at the Police Commissioner's refusal to appear on AM after a dairy worker was stabbed to death last week.
Janak Patel was fatally stabbed in the street after following a man who allegedly took the cash register drawer from Rose Cottage Superette in Sandringham on Wednesday night.
The stabbing has shocked the tight-knit community and prompted concern from other retail workers.
But despite that, Bridge revealed on Monday Police Commissioner Andrew Coster had refused to appear on AM to answer questions.
"Our job here is to try and bring you information every morning and this morning I hoped to bring you an interview with Andrew Coster who is the Police Commissioner," Bridge said.
"We asked for him to come on the programme because as you have seen in our news stories there are a great number of people in this country who are feeling too scared to go to work, others who feel too scared to go to the shopping mall with their children in case there is a smash and grab or a ram raid…people are feeling anxious about it and rightly so.
"So we asked the Commissioner to come on the programme and we said, 'It's a chance for you to reassure the public to talk about the things you're doing, all of those sorts of things'. But we were told the Commissioner would not be appearing this week."
Bridge said when they questioned why Coster wouldn't front, a police media spokesperson replied with a statement that didn't answer the question.
"It says a whole lot of other things including that yes there have been a number of violent incidents in recent weeks."
Bridge said it's Coster's job to front up to the public and reassure shop owners, workers and shoppers.
"That's the job and these shop owners, in particular, deserve to hear from the man who is running the police," he concluded.
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