Once regarded as Australia’s most liveable city, Melbourne’s news broadcasts are now filled with reports of carjackings, fire bombings and random knife attacks.
But in a sad twist, these horror stories are buried deep within the nightly news broadcasts – a side piece in a city that has become accustomed to rampant, mindless violence.
Just this week, everyday residents have been terrorised while trying to get on with their daily lives.
On Thursday, shocking footage was released by Victoria Police showing the moment a woman was attacked by a thug while she vacuumed her car.
Witnesses told police they heard a ‘piercing scream’ from one of the women allegedly struck by the man at a car wash in Frankston, in Melbourne’s southeast.
Police alleged the man tried to steal several cars from the car wash and assaulted a number of women – at least one while wielding a metal pole.
In Hoppers Crossing in Melbourne’s west, horrors of a similar kind were breaking out.
This time two innocent victims were chased by offenders armed with machetes during a terrifying carjacking attempt in broad daylight.
A woman was confronted by an alleged bandit at a Frankston car wash during the week
Knife crime has gone through the roof in Melbourne
The horrifying attack was witnessed by parents driving their kids to school.
Hitting a residential Facebook page, one witness claimed to have watched a young girl running in horror into a church while pursued by a man wielding a machete.
‘I tried my best to stop him, but my daughter was in the car with me who was very scared also,’ he wrote.
His post came with a warning that would be recommended by frustrated police.
‘Everyone please lock your car doors when you are out driving, these pigs tried to get into every car around them after they crashed,’ the man warned.
The gang of six, who were all seen carrying weapons, remain at large.
Just days earlier, up the highway in Footscray, a 24-year-old was stabbed several times after a group came to blows in front of locals and diners.
CCTV footage captured the chaotic brawl spilling out onto a Footscray street just before 9.30pm.
The victim stumbled onto the pavement before collapsing on a park bench.
Melbourne was once known for things not related to violent crime, lockdowns and misery
Katie Tangey was killed in a house fire set by people alleged to be involved in Melbourne’s ‘tobacco war’
He remains in a critical condition in hospital.
While these attacks happened in what could be described as ‘working class’ areas, Melbourne’s well-to-do areas aren’t faring much better.
On Monday, police charged a second man over a string of violent home invasions and armed robberies across the southeastern suburbs.
In one incident, in leafy Kew, a 77-year-old woman was allegedly confronted and assaulted by the pair and struck with a machete.
Another involved an alleged aggravated burglary in Prahran where a victim was threatened with a machete and a Subaru Impreza was stolen.
Then there was the woman slashed while vacuuming her car at a car wash in Cheltenham, 18km south-east of the CBD, on February 22 – again in broad daylight.
On Friday, an arson attack on a Melton barber shop, in Melbourne’s outer west, hardly rated a mention in news broadcasts.
Former Victoria Police Commissioner Shane Patton was forced to step down after a vote of no confidence by members
A woman was slashed with a machete at this Melbourne car wash
Nor did the three youths police arrested following a wild pursuit through Melbourne’s southeast that night.
Melburnians have become so accustomed to hearing about arson attacks they rarely take-up much more than a postage stamp of news space online and but a brief ‘voice over’ on nightly bulletins.
When Melbourne burlesque dancer Katie Tangey was killed in a house fire in January, police went to lengths to tell the community they believed it had nothing to do with the city’s ongoing ‘tobacco wars’.
The 27-year old had been house sitting her brother’s home in Truganina – a short drive from Thursday’s Hoppers Crossing machete attack – when arsonist set the house on fire.
She and her brother’s dog were both killed in the senseless attack.
It would take a month for detectives to go public with their belief Ms Tangey had indeed been an innocent victim in the ongoing tobacco war.
By then, Sam ‘The Punisher’ Abdulrahim had been executed in a daring daylight assassination by brazen killers that also remain at large.
Unlike Ms Tangey’s cruel demise, Abdulrahim’s murder filled news pages for a week.
The blaze that killed Katie Tangey
FOrmer footy WAG Bec Judd has been a vocal critic of Victoria’s crime wave
He had been a major player in the war, which but for a moment led the news agenda across Australia.
By this week, the war had become but a joke again among Melbourne’s battle weary crime reporters.
The Herald Sun went so far as to write a ‘funny’ piece declaring Kazem Hamad – the alleged kingpin behind many of the city’s fires – was a ‘man of action’ that ought run for Premier.
‘It looks as if Hamad has achieved a lot more in the black market tobacco sphere than the State Government has in the past two years,’ it rightly noted.
‘In that time, he and other players have gone on a Big Build of their own, setting up more than 1000 shops across Victoria, meanwhile coordinating massive overseas shipments to stock them … Runs on the board!’
Victoria Police confirmed that the number of arson attacks had reached 105 by October 2024 – the month cited as marking the one-year anniversary of the establishment of Taskforce Lunar, which investigates the attacks.
Sam ‘The Punisher’ Abdulrahim goes to the ground after being executed in Melbourne by hitmen
Sam ‘The Punisher’ Abdulrahim became another Melbourne crime statistic
Youth crime is so proficient it too has been largely shunted to the back pages of news publications.
But it is a crime that could decide the fate of the Victorian premier Jacinta Allan.
In the year ending September 30, 2024, 23,810 crimes were committed by children aged 10–17 – a 16.9 per cent increase from the previous year.
In August last year, then Chief Commissioner Shane Patton told Victorians ‘child crime’ was the biggest concern for police.
On February 5 his government masters declared they had confidence Mr Patton could clean up the mess.
He was gone 11 days later.
In the days since his departure, the war on crime by his burnt-out former colleagues has continued.
On Thursday, Victoria Police revealed a record number of knives had been seized from Victorian streets last year, with almost 40 blades found and destroyed each day.
Victoria Police take down protesters at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance during the state’s Covid-19 lockdowns
Premier of Victoria Jacinta Allan has been accused of putting her head in the sand on the state’s crime problems
The announcement came after the recovery of 930 samurai swords, zombie knives and katana swords from inside a Dandenong South factory.
But while chaos has reigned on the streets of Melbourne, Victoria Police members have been at war with the government over a pay rise.
The ongoing dispute has done little to help the public’s view of police by Melburnians – many of whom have never forgiven them for their heavy-handed treatment during Dan Andrews’ world beating Covid lockdowns.
On Friday, voting ended on a voting on a five per cent annual raise over four years for frontline officers and a 4.5 per cent a year wage rise for other officers.
The Police Association and Victoria Police struck an in-principle deal in May on a nine-day fortnight and 16 per cent pay rise across four years.
But it was knocked back by staff in July, leading hundreds of police to walk off the job for the first time in 25 years.
In the background, angry Melburnians hit social media to vent about the state’s crime wave.
They talk about it at the pub and with mates over a barbeque in what they hope is the safety of their own homes.
Fitzroy North local Robert Morton summed it up best.
‘Victoria may be the education state but you can’t out smart a knife, or a bullet,’ he said.
