August 12th, 2024Commendation for thwarting assault on police
Creswick’s Oscar Broad, and Lachlan McKenzie were just 16 when they noticed a police officer being assaulted and seriously injured in a park in Creswick several years ago, and rushed over to help.
It’s a moment the two young men, now both aged in their early 20s, are unlikely to forget any time soon.
About a fortnight ago Lachlan and Oscar each received a Citizen’s Commendation award at a special Victoria Police ceremony held at the state’s police academy in Glen Waverley.
Recalling the moment they noticed the assault back in 2019, Oscar, now a customer relations officer at the Bendigo Community Bank Creswick & District, says it’s troubling to think about what may have occurred had they not rushed over to help that day.
The commendation citation that both Oscar and Lachlan, respectively, received says it all. It reads “On the 7 December 2019, At Creswick, without hesitation he went to the aid of a Victoria Police Officer who had been assaulted and seriously injured.
“The offenders continued to menace the officer until he intervened, placing himself between the officer and further harm. Under the real threat of physical assault, he continued to provide significant support until further assistance arrived.”
Recounting the incident Oscar says he and Lachlan, who now works at the town’s IGA supermarket, were both students at Ballarat High School at the time of the incident and had been preparing to go to a Christmas party when they noticed the assault taking place in a Creswick park.
“There were three people assaulting an officer and he was on the ground tussling with one of them and the other two were throwing things at him,” Oscar recalls.
“We just looked at each other and ran across the road. We didn’t really think much. We just ran over there to help him out.” Oscar says that during the violent incident he and Lachlan became aware that the officer involved had been injured.
“There was no one else around,” says Lachlan, recounting the 2019 incident. Their actions were enough to fend off and stop the offenders who Oscar estimates to have been aged in their late teens or early 20s.
“It was pretty scary,” says Oscar recalling the incident and describing the way he and Lachlan reacted as “just sort of instinct”. Oscar says that receiving the commendation in recent days was memorable and also involved getting to see new police cadets graduate at the academy.
“It was inspiring. It is a great award and meeting the commissioner was quite surreal,” he says. “It was a privilege.”
“I was very honoured,” says Lachlan when asked for his thoughts about attending the recent commendation presentation.
While it’s understood that the officer they had assisted at the time is not currently working with Victoria Police, a currently serving officer with the Creswick police station, Leading Senior Constable Peter Brown also went along to the recent ceremony at the police academy, acknowledging the impressive effort made by Lachlan and Oscar.
Words: Eve Lamb
