'Absolutely losing their mind': Significant incident in Melbourne's CBD

Now, I mentioned before the break that there's been a significant incident unfolding in the CBD, and Sherri is on the line with the Drive Time tip. Hi, Sherri.

Hi. How are you?

Good. Now, what did you see?

Um, so I'm working in the Waterman's office on Collins Street, and we overlook Collins, and then particularly Tiffany & Co. is right in front of me. Um, and there was a lot of shouting from above, so I, I went and checked it out. Anyway, there was a guy up at the window basically keeping Tiffany inside, locked inside, um, by just losing his mind, screaming, threatening them with items, saying that they can't look at him, and if they do, they'll kill him or kill them. Um, and just, yeah, absolutely losing their mind. The security were inside the shop, and they'd locked themselves in, so they weren't even trying to stop him. So I don't know how long it had been going on for, um, but I'd watched it for about 10 minutes.

Wow. And so what was he threatening them with? Did he have a weapon?

So I couldn't see exactly what he was holding, but he was pulling things out of his bag and going up to the window and smacking on the window with it. When I looped back and looked after the police had arrived, it looked like he had multiple different, I wanna say like toys in his bag, one being a really large plastic hammer. So it was a little bit unhinged as to what I was seeing.

Right.

Um, but I'm not sure what he was banging on the window with, but there was some sort of item that he'd got out of his bag threatening all the staff. Um, so they'd had to completely shut down their shop.

And what about people who were passing by? Were they all okay?

Yeah, everyone was okay. He wasn't attacking anyone on the outside, so it was very much a bit of a vendetta against Tiffany & Co. in particular. So I don't know if he'd gone in and then was told to leave. But he was pacing up and down the street. He was laying on the floor. Um, he was trying to get some people on his side to also kind of go over to Tiffany & Co., but people were just ignoring him. Um, but he was-

And the police came?

Yeah, the police came. So they responded really quickly. There was about eight to 10 of them that arrived in three different cars. Um, and then they approached him with a taser and got him on the ground and arrested. So I was pretty impressed with how quickly they managed that.

Indeed. Right. Well, thank you.

Mm-hmm.

And you, you filmed it all?

Yeah, I got it. [laughs] I got the arrest on footage.

Wonderful.

I felt pretty bad filming it, but, um, yeah, it was pretty good how they handled it. So I actually got the arrest on video.

Um, Sherri, thank you. We'll grab it off you if that's okay. I'll put you back to Catherine. Appreciate your call. So that's Collins Street, broad daylight again. It's very worrying, isn't it? And, and the issues with people with mental health issues in the city, like it's becoming more and more common, isn't it?