A man has been fatally struck by a car after staff at a Melbourne sobering up centre allegedly refused a police request to help him.
The pedestrian was hit near an intersection in Wyndham Vale on Friday morning, Victoria Police said. He died at the scene and is yet to be formally identified.
Police were told the man was laying on the road, but the exact circumstances of the death are yet to be determined. The driver stopped and is assisting police.
AAP has been told police had earlier interacted with the man and called the Collingwood sobering up centre, but staff had refused to attend.
Police Association Victoria secretary Wayne Gatt said the union was supporting two officers following their intervention.
He said the officers came to work to protect people and were prevented from doing so because of the government’s public intoxication reforms.
“A man is dead and the community should be asking the questions that we were asking three years ago and have been asking every day since,” Mr Gatt said.
“Our thoughts are with the man’s family and with our members who will all be traumatised by this preventable tragedy.”
Victoria decriminalised public drunkenness in November, replacing it with a health-based response including outreach teams and a dedicated sobering up centre operated by community health organisation cohealth.
Liberal MP James Newbury said the incident was a catastrophic failure of the new system.
“The premier personally needs to step out and explain how her system failed so tragically a man who should have had the care he needed when he needed it,” he told reporters on Friday.
The Victorian government committed to decriminalising public drunkenness at the start of an inquest into the 2017 death of Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day.
She was arrested for being drunk in a public place and died after hitting her head in a concrete cell at Castlemaine Police Station.
A coroner found her death was preventable.
Cohealth and the Victorian government have been contacted for comment.
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