By Roy Ward, Henrietta Cook and Ashleigh McMillan
Two people have been arrested and another taken to hospital after a machete brawl involving about 10 people broke out at a shopping centre in Melbourne’s north on Sunday afternoon.
Witnesses described seeing shoppers running, screaming and hiding in stores at Northland shopping centre in Preston after two groups of males armed with knives fought each other. The centre went into lockdown as police swarmed the scene, wrestling two alleged offenders to the ground.
One of the two arrested is a 15-year-old boy, and eight other people involved are still being identified, police said at a press conference later on Sunday.
Superintendent Kelly Lawson said one machete had been located at the scene. There were no firearms involved despite some reports, she said.
A photo taken by a witness at Northland Shopping Centre shows a person wielding a knife lunging at two others.
“It’s really frightening for members of the public to go through this,” Lawson said.
Police said they were called to the shopping centre just after 2.30pm following reports of about 10 people from opposing groups fighting, some armed with knives.
“One male was transported to hospital in a serious but stable condition. Police arrested two males who are currently being interviewed,” they said. “The centre was locked down as the incident took place and remains closed while police investigate.
“The exact circumstances surrounding the incident are being investigated, but it is believed the incident was targeted and parties are believed to be known to each other.”
Hanaa was sitting at gelato shop Gelatissimo with her three-year-old daughter and filming her eating an ice-cream when she saw men in ski masks appear in the corner of her phone screen.
“Then it all broke out in front of my daughter,” she said. “We saw a man stabbed and bashed. We saw it all.”
Hanaa went to the back of the store with her daughter and phoned the police.
“It was really crazy,” she said. “There were three guys with machetes and they were hitting two people, one was bleeding from his side.”
Hanaa said another shopper then performed a citizen’s arrest, holding one of the men wielding a machete in a headlock while another bystander tried to treat a man who was bleeding.
“I was shaking and we left,” she said.
“My daughter didn’t finish her ice cream. She threw it in the bin and said, ‘I don’t want it any more. I want to go home.’”
Lawson said police were aware of an incident between the two groups on Saturday which led to them coming to the centre on Sunday to fight.
“I’ve been advised that this was a planned meet-up,” she said.
“There was an incident that happened yesterday that led to them meeting up today, but I’m not across what that incident was.”
She said it took police six minutes from the first call to arrive at the centre.
A police officer holds a person to the floor inside the centre.Credit: Facebook
An Ambulance Victoria spokesperson said one man in his 20s was taken to hospital in a serious but stable condition with upper body injuries.
The spokesperson said at least two other people were assessed by paramedics but were not taken to hospital.
Videos and stills on social media show a man wielding a large knife lunging at two other men running towards him. Other posts show police wrestling a man to the ground and people hiding in stores.
Workers near the centre’s food court said two groups of people were fighting and two people appeared to be holding large knives.
Police officers apprehend a person at Northland following the brawl.Credit: Facebook
Staff further away heard screaming and saw patrons running for the exits after the fighting began.
“People were running and screaming and we had to close our doors to protect our customers and ourselves,” a witness, Rodney, said.
“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.’”
He said it was the worst violence he had seen in almost eight years working at the centre.
A police officer grabs a male’s arm.Credit: Facebook
One woman, who did not want to be identified for privacy reasons, was trapped inside Woolworths when the incident unfolded.
“I could see people running past and then saw some of the other shopfronts closing,” she said. “Then we heard people saying, ‘People are being stabbed with machetes.’”
She then witnessed police streaming into the shopping centre. The woman said staff initially gave shoppers an opportunity to leave the supermarket but then closed their doors and offered frightened customers bottles of water.
“I kept shopping because I didn’t know how else to keep calm,” she said.
About 3.30pm, Woolworths staff advised customers to leave their trolleys full of groceries at the entrance of the supermarket and to follow police instructions. The doors were opened and shoppers were ordered to a Northland car park.
“Everyone who was in the mall was being ushered in the car park,” she said. “Some people got in their car and started driving, but most people stood around waiting to see what was happening. There were police at the exit of the car park and ambulances and helicopters.”
Shoppers and retail staff continued to mill outside the centre during the afternoon. However, a shopping centre official was seen telling people that they were unlikely to be able to re-enter today and people continued to be turned away after 6pm.
Liberal MP for the Northern Metropolitan Region Evan Mulholland said on Instagram that people should avoid the area.
The shopping centre on Sunday.Credit: Wayne Taylor
“Our shopping centres should be a safe place for families. Northland in particular is a destination for many families in the north. I was there with my own family yesterday,” he said.
He called for the state government to enact the machete ban immediately.
Superintendent Lawson said police wanted those laws in operation as soon as possible.
“There is no secret that Victoria Police want those laws in place as soon as possible,” Lawson said.
“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.”
Lawson said police knew of about 40 youth gangs across Victoria, and these two groups were among those.
“We are working as hard as we can through Operation Alliance to curb that behaviour and we’re doing disruption behaviour where we can, and we are doing everything we can to infiltrate those gangs,” 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.”
Lawson wasn’t certain if any citizen’s arrests happened in the immediate aftermath of the incident, but she commended the work of retail workers to protect customers.
She hoped police could finish their investigations overnight so the centre could open on Monday as usual.
“There will be more police patrols tomorrow. I want the community to feel safe and we will work here as late we can tonight,” she said.
In the early evening, people continued to flock to Northland to do their grocery shopping or eat at the restaurants only to find the centre closed due to the incident. Some took videos or asked others what happened.
Exhausted retail workers, many of them store managers or owners, were stuck outside and hoping they would be let back in to retrieve their belongings and clean and lock up their stores.
Premier Jacinta Allan has been under pressure to act on soaring rates of knife crime and youth offending in Victoria, prompting the introduction of a ban on machetes set to commence on September 1.
The state government trumpeted passing Australia’s “toughest bail laws” in March and, in the recent budget, revealed new investment in prison capacity. The government has backed down on a plan to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, instead legislating the age at 12.
In April 2024, Joel Cauchi, 40, stabbed and killed six shoppers with a military knife at Bondi Junction Westfields in Sydney before he was shot dead by police. The mass killing prompted calls for improved safety measures at shopping centres.
A NSW coronial inquest into the Bondi attack is under way.
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