Victoria Police’s top dog has suspended all joint operations with the Federal Government’s Border Force agency, after a bungled operation triggering protests in Melbourne streets in August.

A poorly worded press release issued by the Australian Border Force (ABF) in relation to a multi-agency operation in Melbourne – saying they would conduct random visa checks and “stop anyone we would crossed paths with” – caused backlash and sparked a 200-strong snap-protest against racial profiling.

ABF Commissioner, Roman Quaedvlieg, later admitted the press release was “clumsily worded” and “cleared by someone in a low level of the organisation”.

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Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said on Thursday police will not be doing operations with the ABF, until he gained an understanding of its “different look and feel” after its merger out of Customs and Immigration.

Victoria Police’s Graham Ashton. Photo: Getty

“I said we won’t be doing operations together until we understand what they might look like and what the differences are now between Border Force and what Immigration used to do,” Mr Ashton told ABC radio on Thursday morning.

“Until we do that we won’t be doing anything further together.”

Mr Ashton also confirmed that he was behind the cancellation of Operation Fortitude in August.

“I was alerted on the day to the media release that had come out and when I read that, I was alarmed and felt, gee, we’ve clearly got two different understandings about what this operation was supposed to be about so I cancelled the operation,” Mr Ashton said.

He told the ABC that he had since had met with Mr Quaedvlieg to “clarify” his agency’s involvement.

“I accept the word of Roman on that,” Mr Ashton said.

He said it was not to do with an “issue of trust”, but ensuring the community wasn’t alarmed.

“To me it’s about making sure the community understand what’s going on,” he said.