From stolen cars to drugs and high-speed pursuits: A night on patrol in Melbourne’s criminal heartland

The call comes through to the police radio before midnight. The air wing helicopter has eyes on a suspicious stolen car. The silver ute is racing down a major road towards bushland. Crews are on their way.

“We are heading north towards the river,” a voice says over the radio.

It’s an unseasonably warm night, and Detective Senior Sergeant Matt Lewis is patrolling Melbourne’s sprawling outer west, where serious crimes such as assaults and home invasions are rising.

Lewis is the officer in charge of Operation Shows, a night operation based out of Werribee police station launched in 2022 to deal with the spate of home invasions, carjackings, thefts and other violent crimes in Wyndham.

This is the second time police have spotted the suspicious ute in a matter of hours. The first time, it refused to stop for police along Ballan Road. This time, it is heading down a dirt road surrounded by a patchwork of paddocks and dead-end paths leading down to the Werribee River near Manor Lakes.

It’s the kind of dark, desolate place crooks use to sort through their haul of stolen goods, or drive across grassland to evade the police. I was at this exact spot only a few weeks earlier, during a ride-along with the private security guards keeping watch on housing estates nearby.

This time, the driver of the stolen ute has managed to get completely bogged in a ditch while trying to “bush-bash” his way out. The air wing is hovering above, tracking the occupants as they attempt to flee the vehicle.

The next few minutes are an action-packed blur. The officers, Lewis included, swarm the otherwise quiet track and intercept a man trying to flee on a bike he has pulled from the back of the trapped ute.

Next, they arrest the driver of the car, a 30-year-old man from Sunshine West, with an unkempt beard and a high-vis Uber Eats jacket.

A Belgian Malinois named Blue brings in the third arrest – a 38-year-old man from Footscray who had attempted to leg it through the bush.

“He’s a cracker, he is a really good dog,” says handler Leading Senior Constable Brendan Williams, leading Blue into a cage in the back of his police car.

When Victoria Police imported Blue from the Netherlands to join the dog squad, he followed commands only in Dutch. Williams had to learn the foreign prompts and retrain Blue to follow orders in English.

“I’ve got a list at home of different commands I had to learn,” he says.

All three men involved in the air wing pursuit have since been charged with theft offences and theft of a motor vehicle. The driver has also been charged with driving while disqualified and failing to stop at the direction of police.

They are among 15 arrests Operation Shows officers made last Thursday and Friday. During the operation, officers also checked 464 vehicles, recovered four stolen cars, and impounded nine vehicles for offences such as driving with a suspended licence, speeding and drink-driving.

In the six hours spent on the road with Lewis last Thursday night, The Age witnessed six arrests and several extended follows of suspicious vehicles – where police trail a car for a long time. That’s in addition to the cacophony of unrelated police jobs pouring in through the speaker in the back of the car, which are attended by regular uniformed police in the west. A man wielding a crowbar fighting with another bloke. A family violence dispute. A dead kangaroo.

Among those charged by Operation Shows officers was a man nabbed for driving 150km/h in a 60km/h zone in Hoppers Crossing. The 21-year-old had previously been disqualified from driving and was allegedly driving while under the influence. The police helicopter was able to track the car to Old Track Place in Hoppers Crossing, where ground crews swooped in.

There was also a 41-year-old man charged with stealing a car after he was spotted driving a stolen Mazda in Hoppers Crossing; and a 24-year-old man from Corio who is expected to be charged on summons for failing to stop when directed by police, driving dangerously, running a red light and travelling at speeds above 105km/h in a 70km/h zone during a separate incident.

Most of the time, the officers are trying to pre-empt what offenders might do, so they can intercept them before they become a danger to others, whether that’s ambushing them down a dirt road or deploying stop sticks – metal spikes used to puncture car and truck tyres – in their path. That’s why the air wing is so essential. It can feed back intelligence to ground crews in real time and track offenders from a distance.

Officers arrest a man who was allegedly travelling in a stolen car before fleeing on a bike in bushland near Manor Lakes.Credit: Alex Coppel

Lewis says operations like this are important because they stop offenders in their tracks.

“We know that because people don’t steal a car just to get from A to B,” Lewis says.

It also shows the community that police are out and about – even if they aren’t wearing a uniform and travel in unmarked cars.

“You might not always see us, but we are always there,” Lewis says.

Patrolling the west is a complex business.

The area’s population is exploding, but newer housing estates are often isolated, making them prime targets for criminals. In places like Manor Lakes, large family homes sit next to construction sites, a magnet for crooks looking to steal copper and tools. And then, there’s the warring youth gang problem.

A coroner’s report last month on the death of teen Solomone Kitione Charlie Taufe’ulungaki, near Brimbank Shopping Centre in 2020, shows more than half of Victoria’s young gang violence happens in Melbourne’s north-west. Police believe about 350 young gang members were operating in the area as of mid-2023.

Officers at Werribee police station watch the footage from the air wing in real time.Credit: Alex Coppel

It can be dangerous, too. Just last Friday, an offender rammed a police car at a petrol station carpark in Tarneit. It was the second time a police car had been rammed recently.

On the last occasion, the air wing followed the car through Tarneit, and officers on the ground were able to arrest two people. They found more than $54,000 in cash, a firearm, ammunition, drug paraphernalia, cocaine and MDMA inside the car.

Lewis says the busy nature of the north-west district is part of the appeal for police officers. The area has farmland and industrial estates, older housing and new estates. It is also home to the Cherry Creek Youth Justice Centre and a new court due to open next week. The population is among Melbourne’s most culturally diverse.

“It’s a good training ground for members to learn their skills, but importantly to engage with the community as well on both the proactive and a reactive means,” he says.

We return to the small command post at the Werribee police station about 2.30am. Senior Sergeant Peter West and a couple of other officers are sitting inside a small meeting room in an empty office floor. The walls are covered in maps and a large TV displaying a live feed from the helicopter camera. The only noise is the chatter coming from the radio.

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The air wing is tracking a car with stolen plates from Shepparton. Crews have been tailing it from a distance for a while, but all indications are it is travelling back towards northern Victoria.

“Call Shepparton,” West tells an officer.

This might just be one for local teams.

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