Man’s wild seven-hour police chase across Melbourne ends dramatically

A seven-hour Melbourne van rampage has ended in chaos after the driver attempted to flee the stolen vehicle on foot.

Wild helicopter footage has shown the moment a man was hit by a car following a seven-hour high-speed police chase through the Melbourne.

Early risers may have caught a glimpse of the chaos unfolding this morning, after the man allegedly stole a van on St Kilda Road around 5.40am.

It kicked off a wild seven-hour pursuit across the city as cops scrambled to detain the man and get the stolen vehicle back in one piece.

Police were assisted by the Air Wing and multiple ground units in tracking the vehicle as it travelled erratically through multiple suburbs, including Footscray, Port Melbourne, Spotswood, Carnegie, Sunshine, Dandenong and eventually Point Cook.

The man allegedly stole a van on St Kilda Road around 5.40am.

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The driver attempted to flee on foot, dramatically jumping out of the driver side window. But he didn’t last long and was struck by an unmarked police car.

Along the way, the van collided with a number of parked and moving vehicles, with pieces of its chassis flying off.

The pursuit came to a dramatic end just after 1pm when the vehicle crashed into a street sign at the intersection of Dunnings and Palmers roads in Point Cook.

But the drama wasn’t over just yet. The driver attempted to flee on foot, dramatically jumping out of the driver side window. But he didn’t last long and was struck by an unmarked police car.

The 36-year-old Point Cook man was arrested on the scene and taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

He remains under police guard and is yet to be interviewed.

No serious injuries have been reported at this stage.

‘Wasn’t deliberate’

Speaking to media after the incident, Acting Inspector Dean Pickering shed light on the chaos of the pursuit and the dramatic way it came to an end.

“Look, I’ve seen the video and we got our bad guy. That’s a fair thing to say,” he said.

Inspector Pickering said the arrest left even seasoned officers a little shaken.

“Looking at what happened, I don’t think anyone would have expected that offender to bail out of the window like he did when he did,” Pickering said.

“When I watched the video, I was a bit surprised, thinking that someone would do that. (I’m) surprised he actually didn’t get run over by the van he was in and looking at it, it was pretty close.”

“The driver of that police car, I’ve briefly spoken to, he wasn’t anticipating that person was going to come out the window and run like he did. They’ve taken evasive action pretty quickly, and obviously we have seen the collision.

“But unfortunately in the policing world we see pedestrian collisions all day, every day from people that in this case do crazy things. And in this case, the bad guy wanted to escape. It certainly wasn’t a deliberate course of action as a way to arrest our offender.”

Pickering said the man’s charges are still being finalised.

“Too early to call it. But weapon charges is probably a fair way to put it,” he said.

“Even looking at the video that I’ve looked at, I lost count with fingers, toes and everything else in terms of how many charges that I could see. It’s gone hours and hours and hours before. There’ll be significant charges.

“He’ll be held to account. He’ll be off the streets. Obviously, his injuries will be looked at. The members will interview him, and it would be our intention to ensure that he’s off the streets for as long as we can keep him off the streets.”

Originally published as Man’s wild seven-hour police chase across Melbourne ends dramatically