Hero shopper performs citizen's arrest in ‘disgraceful' Northland Shopping Centre brawl
Emergency services were called to Northland Shopping Centre in Preston on Sunday afternoon following reports of two groups of men – some armed with knives and wearing ski masks – were engaged in a suspected gang fight, sending staff and shoppers fleeing.
Two teenage boys – a 16-year-old from the Darebin area and a 15-year-old from the Melton area – were arrested at the scene.
In a statement on Monday morning, police said they had charged the pair with affray, intentionally causing injury, possessing a controlled weapon and using a controlled weapon. They were remanded in custody to appear in children's court.
A 20-year-old man who was rushed to hospital with serious injuries is in a stable condition, police said. Two other men injured in the fight later presented to hospital.
Within minutes of the brawl breaking out, one man was apprehended by a member of the public, who pinned him to the ground, as shown in the above footage.
Another shopper could be seen in the footage tending to a man who was bleeding.
Victoria Police Superintendent Kelly Lawson said police arrived to a 'really chaotic scene', some six minutes after receiving the first call. Multiple units, including a special operations group, tactical response team officers and cops, descended on the Murray Rd shopping centre.
The 'rival gangs' had prearranged to meet up in the food court, Supt Lawson said, adding it was 'pretty disgraceful' that shoppers had been 'exposed to this kind of behaviour'.
'It's really frightening for members of the public to go through this,' she said.
'For the people here today it would have been horrific, and I really feel for them so we need to keep doing what we can to stop it.'
Supt Lawson earlier revealed the fight 'is said to have been an act of retaliation … not just a random attack'.
'It's happened in a busy shopping centre, so there clearly was a risk to the public, there's always a risk to the public,' she said.
'But what the public need to take comfort in is that this wasn't just some people that went out to attack general people with the public, they were attacking each other. It was planned.'
Anyone who witnessed the incident is being encouraged to contact Crime Stoppers.
The lockdown sparked chaos at the bustling centre, with patrons screaming and running for the exits or into surrounding stores after the fighting began, later sharing footage and photos of the incident to social media.
'The world is mad. Just got home from Northland!' one woman wrote on X.
'Was locked in a store room in Myer, staff were fantastic. Still shaken. Hope injured will be OK.'
'People were running and screaming and we had to close our doors to protect our customers and ourselves,' one retail worker and witness, Rodney, told The Age.
'Everyone was locking customers in to be safe. Then police came through and said, 'Get behind us and we will take you out of the centre'.'
It was the worst violence he had seen in almost eight years working at the centre, Rodney said.
Another woman, Hanaa, had been sitting at Gelatissimo with her three-year-old daughter when the fighting 'broke out in front' of them.
'We saw a man stabbed and bashed. We saw it all,' Hanaa told The Age.
She took her daughter to the back to the gelato shop and phoned police.
Liberal MP for the Northern Metropolitan Region Evan Mulholland urged people to avoid the area in a post on social media.
'Our shopping centres should be a safe place for families,' Mr Mulholland wrote on Sunday afternoon.
'Northland in particular is a destination for many families in the north. I was there with my own family yesterday.
'We continue our call for the Labor Government to enact the machete ban immediately.'
Supt Lawson said 'there is no secret' police also want that ban in place 'as soon as possible'.
'We are really concerned about the use of edged weapons, but we are doing all that we can in relation to that and to making public places safe,' she said.
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A total of 45 stations across the state will host disposal bins set up for the three-month initiative. Carrying one of the deadly, long and broad-bladed knives is outlawed, while a sales ban with some exemptions is already operating. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) Lifeline 13 11 14 Men's Referral Service 1300 766 491 An elderly man has been charged with the murder of a woman, while another man in his 20s is fighting for life following separate overnight stabbing attacks across two states. Homicide Squad detectives were investigating an attack on an elderly woman who was found fatally injured at a house in Coleraine, about 35km from Hamilton, in Victoria's southwest. Local officers found the 81-year-old woman alive shortly after 1am on Saturday, but she died at the scene. Police arrested and interviewed an 81-year-old Coleraine man who was known to the victim before charging him with murder on Saturday evening. He has been remanded in custody and will face the Warrnambool Magistrates Court on Monday. In a separate incident, two men were also stabbed at a house gathering in Sydney's west overnight, one of them suffering critical wounds. Emergency crews were called to a residential unit in Patricia Street, Mays Hill, in the city's inner west, in the early hours of Saturday following reports a man in his 20s had sustained serious injuries. He was located and treated at the scene by paramedics for an apparent life-threatening knife wound to the torso before being taken to Westmead Hospital. Police said a second man of similar age was found nearby with a wound to his arm. He was also transported to Westmead. It is understood the pair and others at the address were known to each other. The Coleraine incident comes days after an Australia-first knife ban targeting young offenders. Victorian parents were urged on Thursday to hand in their children's machetes and knives at police amnesty posts. A total of 45 stations across the state will host disposal bins set up for the three-month initiative. Carrying one of the deadly, long and broad-bladed knives is outlawed, while a sales ban with some exemptions is already operating. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) Lifeline 13 11 14 Men's Referral Service 1300 766 491 An elderly man has been charged with the murder of a woman, while another man in his 20s is fighting for life following separate overnight stabbing attacks across two states. Homicide Squad detectives were investigating an attack on an elderly woman who was found fatally injured at a house in Coleraine, about 35km from Hamilton, in Victoria's southwest. Local officers found the 81-year-old woman alive shortly after 1am on Saturday, but she died at the scene. Police arrested and interviewed an 81-year-old Coleraine man who was known to the victim before charging him with murder on Saturday evening. He has been remanded in custody and will face the Warrnambool Magistrates Court on Monday. In a separate incident, two men were also stabbed at a house gathering in Sydney's west overnight, one of them suffering critical wounds. Emergency crews were called to a residential unit in Patricia Street, Mays Hill, in the city's inner west, in the early hours of Saturday following reports a man in his 20s had sustained serious injuries. He was located and treated at the scene by paramedics for an apparent life-threatening knife wound to the torso before being taken to Westmead Hospital. Police said a second man of similar age was found nearby with a wound to his arm. He was also transported to Westmead. It is understood the pair and others at the address were known to each other. The Coleraine incident comes days after an Australia-first knife ban targeting young offenders. Victorian parents were urged on Thursday to hand in their children's machetes and knives at police amnesty posts. A total of 45 stations across the state will host disposal bins set up for the three-month initiative. Carrying one of the deadly, long and broad-bladed knives is outlawed, while a sales ban with some exemptions is already operating. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) Lifeline 13 11 14 Men's Referral Service 1300 766 491
