25-05-2025
Hero shopper performs citizen's arrest in ‘disgraceful' Northland Shopping Centre brawl
Footage has shown the moment a heroic shopper pinned down a man wielding a machete and held him in a chokehold during the terrifying shopping centre lockdown in Melbourne's northeast.
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.
