A spate of disturbing and violent incidents across Melbourne in recent days have sparked fears the city is in the grips of a “crime crisis”.
Schools are on high alert after a string of alleged abductions last week, one was killed in an alleged car rampage through Bourke St on Friday night and a feared gangland figure was executed in broad daylight at a cafe on Saturday.
Veteran 3AW broadcaster Neil Mitchell asked his audience on Monday morning whether they felt safe and confident venturing into the city amid the city’s “crisis”.
“Melbourne’s got a crime crisis. And it is a crisis because people are losing confidence,” he said.
“I know people are avoiding the city because it feels dangerous, threatening and dirty. The perception is what matters. If people are declaring Melbourne a no-go zone, then we’ve got a problem.”
Mitchell pointed to the “past few days” of disturbing incidents including the alleged abduction and stabbing of a man in Melbourne’s northern suburbs overnight.
Four people, two men and two women – one of whom is a 16-year-old girl – were arrested on Sunday night over the incident, after crashing and fleeing a reportedly stolen van in Northcote.
A man was released from the vehicle at an intersection before the van crashed into a parked car. He is believed to have been abducted and was rushed to hospital suffering facial injuries.
Mitchell also pointed to a fatal attack on Saturday morning, when infamous “gangster” Gavin ‘Capable’ Preston was gunned down at a cafe in Keilor East, 20km northwest of Melbourne’s CBD.
Graphic CCTV has emerged of the moment Preston was shot multiple times in an ambush attack at Sweet Lulu’s cafe at about 10.20am on Saturday.
Preston was having breakfast with Abbas ‘AJ’ Machnie, the son of late crime boss Nabil Machnie, when two men in black fired shots at the pair.
Preston died at the scene, but Machnie was shot in the stomach and rushed to hospital with serious injuries, police confirmed.
The shooting has sparked fears of an escalation in gang warfare, which Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has attempted to allay.
Asked about the potential for Preston’s death to inflame organised crime, Mr Andrews said he had received “no advice” to suggest a new war was brewing, but insisted Victoria Police were working “around the clock … to catch those responsible”.
But veteran crime journalist John ‘Sly’ Silvester told 3AW Melbourne was already in the thick of another gangland war.
“We’ve got fires, we’ve got shootings. We’re in a gangland war,” he said on Monday.
But, he added, it was unlikely anyone would “back-up for Preston” and avenge him.
“And the only question being asked by both the police and the underworld at the moment since Gavin was released (from prison) in April is ‘why did it take so long?’,” Silvester said, noting he “had a war on about six fronts”.
“He didn’t have a big empire, he didn’t have a great deal of supporters. There will be a lot of people in the underworld more than happy with what happened at the weekend.”
However, the escalation in disturbing crimes across Melbourne started earlier in the week, with the alleged abduction of school students in the city’s southeast.
A massive police manhunt is under way for the unknown offenders believed to have dragged a 14-year-old boy into a car before dumping him on the side of the road with life-threatening injuries on Monday.
It is understood the Year 9 student was walking home from school when he was attacked and forced into a dark grey Volkswagen Tiguan outside Glen Eira College at about 3.35pm.
Victoria Police Inspector Scott Dwyer said two more boys from the same school had since come forward alleging they were also abducted on the same day.
Teachers and students from the school – as well as a number of others deemed Melbourne’s “dangerous” – have called for increased and permanent security amid a spate of violent incidents.
A number of staff and students from Tarneit Senior College, Glen Eira College, Parkdale Secondary College, Fountain Gate Secondary College and Caroline Chisholm Catholic College told The Herald Sunthey needed to be assured of their safety after a number of attacks against and by students.
Then, on Friday night, the Melbourne CBD was thrown into chaos when a 26-year-old man allegedly drove his car into pedestrians.
Officers were called to Melbourne’s bustling Bourke St at the intersection with Russell St at about 6pm on Friday after a white Toyota Aurion sedan hit three pedestrians before T-boning a Hyundai and a Mazda CX-5.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 76-year-old man from Brunswick in Melbourne’s inner north, died at the scene.
Three pedestrians and the driver and passenger of the CX-5, all in their twenties and thirties, were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Homicide detectives charged Zain Khan, from Melton West, with murder and attempted murder following the fatal rampage.
The crash comes five years after an unrelated incident in which a car was deliberately driven into a group of pedestrians on the same street in a harrowing attack that killed six people.
That 2017 attack led to a $52.5 million security upgrade across the CBD, including the installation of hundreds of steel bollards, reinforced barriers and gates in high-traffic pedestrian sites.
After Friday’s horrific events, the Premier said his government would learn from the crash – the third fatal incident on the street in six years – but said there was no “obvious” safety measure that could have prevented it.
“There’s always limits to how far you can go when you’ve got shared spaces and particularly when you’re running a tram network which is unique in the world,” Mr Andrews told reporters.
“I don’t think there is an obvious engineering fix … but having said that, that‘s why you have the coroner look at these matters,” he said.
“If there‘s anything more we can do that comes through that coronial process, of course we stand ready to do that.
“We owe it to the family of that 76-year-old man who lost his life and those who are injured and those who are caught up in this — we owe it to all of them to try and learn from this incident and any other incident.”