By Sherryn Groch, Cassandra Morgan, Melissa Cunningham and Nicole Precel
The machete landed in front of Ali, and he knew he had seconds to grab it.
All around him, chaos had erupted during an otherwise quiet Sunday afternoon, as rival youth gangs faced off in what police say was a planned brawl in the middle of a Melbourne shopping centre.
Ali has described how he sprang into action during the machete brawl at Northland on Sunday.Credit: Eddie Jim
Four people have been charged – including two teenagers and a man who were already on bail. And Victoria’s machete ban has been brought forward by three months after the fight left one man with serious head injuries and scores of shoppers fled in terror.
Ali had been in line for sushi at Northland shopping centre on Sunday when he was shoved from behind. A group of males, some wearing balaclavas, raced past, wildly swinging machetes.
Ali and other bystanders acted fast. Anthony, who had been on his way to buy a Boost Juice drink and an air fryer, stuck his foot out and tripped one male wielding a machete.
As the male fell to the floor and others moved to wrestle the weapon from him, CCTV footage shows Ali darting in to grab it. He threw the blade behind the counter of a nearby gelato shop.
“The machete – it looked like a sword – ended up skidding in front of me, and two of those boys fighting both looked at it and I knew I had to dive for it,” Ali told this masthead.
Meanwhile, Anthony had wrestled the man who dropped the machete into a chokehold on the floor until police arrived to arrest him.
Shoppers were running and hiding in stores, as chairs were picked up, weapons flung down and the centre was plunged into lockdown.
Ali said he grabbed a young man kicking the male who Anthony was holding on the ground and pulled him off.
“They were both taking a bit of a beating,” he said.
“Then another guy [involved in the brawl] had blood gushing from his head, so I helped move him over to the gelato shop and ran and got a first-aid kit from the McDonald’s.”
Witnesses said they saw multiple males struck by machetes in the chaos.
Police said on Monday that they had arrested and charged four gang members over the brawl. They believe it was a planned act of retaliation after an incident the day before, and no innocent bystanders were hurt. All eight people involved had been identified and were known to police, detectives said, while court documents show at least three were out on bail at the time.
Police are also searching for a man who performed a citizen’s arrest to “appropriately recognise him for his actions” – possibly referring to Anthony, who can be seen in footage of the brawl widely circulated online but has used a pseudonym to speak to media.
Ali and long-time friend Shaz.Credit: Eddie Jim
Of his own decision to intervene, Ali said he was “used to crowd chaos”, having survived both the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 and a bombing in his native Sri Lanka. “I think I reacted automatically,” he said, and he knew his long-time friend, Shaz, who also witnessed the brawl, “would have my back”.
Jules, 17, was serving customers at the gelato shop when Ali told her to get back to safety as he dropped the machete behind her counter.
“It all happened so fast,” Jules told this masthead.
She quickly put gloves on and moved the machete safely out the back for police to collect later.
Police officers apprehend a person at Northland after Sunday’s brawl.Credit: Facebook
The shop floor was covered in blood as bystanders surrounded a male injured in the clash.
Jules ferried tea towels back and forth to an off-duty nurse, who rushed to help stem his bleeding, and another man removed his shirt to help.
A false alarm that a gun might have been involved in the brawl, which police quickly ruled out, had sent dozens more shoppers running for cover soon after the fight was over, Jules and Ali said.
“I’d never seen anything like that before,” said Jules, a year 12 student. “But I’m feeling OK. I just couldn’t go to school today because I left my schoolwork in the back, and we’ve been locked out.”
Two boys, aged 15 and 16, who police allege were the “primary offenders”, were arrested at the scene on Sunday and charged with affray and other violent offences. Both were remanded in custody, having already been out on bail.
Police patrol Northland on Monday. Credit: Eddie Jim
One of the teenagers appeared in a children’s court on Monday with scratches and lacerations on his face, which his lawyer said required medical attention. He will appear in court again on Friday to apply for bail. The other boy, also charged with intentionally causing serious injury and affray among other offences, did not apply for bail and will return to court in June.
Police later charged two others, a 20-year-old man from Thornbury, who was also out on bail at the time of the fight, and an 18-year-old man from Bundoora. Both have been released on bail.
A 20-year-old man suffered serious head injuries in the clash and remained in hospital in a stable condition on Monday. Police said two other males involved had since sought hospital treatment.
Northland largely reopened on Monday, but some stores, such as the gelato and sushi shop where the fight unfolded, had their gates drawn, and police patrolled the centre.
A Boost Juice worker, who asked to remain anonymous, told of how customer Anthony had rushed to intervene on Sunday. He said he heard the thud of impact when a machete hit someone’s head and arm.
“I was too shocked to move,” he said.
At least one brawler had his face covered and was dressed all in black “like a ninja”, the staffer said. “For a second, I thought they were playing dress-up. Then, it started. People even picked up chairs.”
Some Northland staff told this masthead they felt shaken by Sunday’s violence but most said they felt security had acted fast.
Jules said Ali had stayed to check on her and her young colleague, as customers fled the shop.
Ali and Shaz, who co-run a local business, called customers and community members to check on them as they left the centre on Sunday. “We walked to a nearby mosque to pray for everyone [involved],” Ali said. “Those guys were just young kids.”
Boost Juice staff said they ended up making Anthony a juice before they were all evacuated from the centre.
“That guy [Anthony] was so calm,” Ali said. “He said as he was leaving, ‘Damn, I forgot the air fryer’.”
The Victorian government has fast-tracked a ban on the sale of machetes in the aftermath of the brawl, bringing it forward by three months, to Wednesday.
John Coyne, who formerly worked in criminal intelligence at the Australian Federal Police, said the violent scenes at Northland were part of a long-standing problem with lost youth in Australia that “you won’t solve just by locking more kids up”. Social media had allowed nebulous youth gangs, which often formed and dissolved fast, to co-ordinate discreetly and at a new scale, he said.
Data from the Crime Statistics Agency shows violence and threats at shopping centres have been steadily rising over the past decade to a high last year of 1964 incidents recorded.
Local youth worker Navin Dhillon said he had noticed an increase in young people committing “high impact” offending such as knife crimes and carjackings.
“[A machete] is very large, it’s heavy, it’s intimidating,” he said. “It can be used by young people as a way to attain upward social mobility among their peers – as it often signals that they are not to be messed with.”
But he said it was also a sign of boys feeling insecure and vulnerable, something he’d seen borne out in discussions with young people.
Dhillon called for responses to be evidence-led, with investment in more early intervention, crime prevention and culturally specific supports.
“We want to make sure we prevent them from being in the sort of activity that we saw on the weekend in the first place.”
Youth Support and Advocacy Service CEO Andrew Bruun said the recent youth crime wave was not due to one thing, and required more detailed investigation to understand.
On Monday, the police union said it was not opposed to more police or protective services officer patrols of shopping centres because “police need to be more visible on our streets”. Union boss Wayne Gatt welcomed the premier’s fast-tracked ban on machetes. But he also called for careful planning around the safe surrender of the weapons as well as tougher sentencing, even after the Allan government’s recent youth bail crackdown.
Northland’s management, Vicinity, said on Monday that it was taking the incident seriously but normal operations had resumed. “We understand yesterday’s incident was distressing,” it said.
It took police six minutes to arrive to the Northland brawl on Sunday after the first triple-zero call after 2.30pm.
With Lachlan Abbott and Alexander Darling
Our Breaking News Alert will notify you of significant breaking news when it happens. Get it here.