Eyewitnesses detail wild police chase on the Monash Freeway

A broad daylight police chase down two of our busiest freeways, the Eastern and the Monash. Heavily armed police, motorists stuck for hours, a gang of alleged youth offenders once again holding a city to ransom, and this is so frightening. So today, and you would've heard a lot of it unfold on Tony's program, scores of people having to swerve their vehicles to avoid being hit. A city brought to a standstill because once again, a group of out-of-control alleged criminals stole two cars and decided to put hundreds of people's lives at risk in the middle of the workday. The cost of sitting in hours-long traffic jams, potentially with children or babies in the car, arrests on the side of the road, people trying to get to work to make a living, and the life-threatening behavior of a high-speed chase. And a lot of this is done for online laughs. And so what do we ask again today of these youth offenders allegedly? Were they on bail? Were they known to police? Will they get bail? And if you were caught up in this, let me know, 133693, drive@3aw.com.au, or you can text us, 0477693693. We have six people arrested. So that's the first thing we're gonna talk about today, and here's the second. This afternoon, again, broad daylight, an innocent person on a tram attacked and stabbed with a kitchen knife in South Melbourne, an horrific, horrific assault in broad daylight, taken to hospital. Good Samaritans there. She was stabbed near her neck on a tram in the middle of the day. And stay listening because I'm about to speak to some of the wonderful people who applied pressure to her wound and helped this poor woman and who called an ambulance, who is now in the Alfred. So this is just two of the three examples. I'll give you another one now. So there's a court case unfolding in the Latrobe Valley today, where a man is alleged to have assaulted a store worker. He apparently bought a toothbrush. He opened it, and he took it back, demanding a refund. And when the attendant said, "No, you can't have a refund, you've opened it," he pulled out a knife and threatened them. So he's going to go, this alleged offender, before the court today, and I've been told that the Office of Public Prosecutions is not going to oppose bail. And I've also been told that police are absolutely furious, and not only are they not going to oppose bail, the charges are going to be dropped because of this thing called a claim of rights. It's a law from 1984, and the idea of this law is that if you buy something, it... you can return it if you don't want it anymore. So the charges are going to be withdrawn. So that's three serious criminal incidents occurring in Melbourne today. So 133693, drive@3aw.com.au, 0477693693. And you would've seen recent polling about the upcoming election, and crime, although we spend a lot of time, and I, and I do believe this, the potholes is actually the number one issue. Crime, according to the polls, is the number one issue. But if you can no longer go about your day in Melbourne because you need to get to work, you've got your children, or worse, a newborn baby in the car, or you're pregnant, as one of the women I'm going to speak to is, and you're stuck