Knives, daggers and batons seized in shopping centre crime crackdown

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Daggers, batons and knives have been seized and more than 100 people arrested during the first three weeks of a crackdown on violent crime and anti-social behaviour at shopping centres.

Among those arrested by police and protective services officers were a 15-year-old boy with a hunting knife stashed in his waistband, two men who took swings at each other with a stolen hammer, and two thieves who had stolen more than $800 worth of clothes.

PSOs and police have been deployed to prevent crime in shopping centres.

Officers also responded to several incidents of abuse towards retail workers, including a woman who became aggressive inside a computer store and a group that got into a disagreement with staff over taking photos with Santa.

Victoria Police launched Operation Pulse earlier this month to provide a visible deterrent against anti-social and violent behaviour in public places in the lead-up to Christmas and over the summer months.

The $2.3 million operation came amid pleas for help from retailers across Victoria facing a crisis of abuse, violence, theft and knife crime that has turned the state into Australia’s retail theft capital and seen a series of high-profile violent incidents at shopping centres, including a wild brawl between machete-wielding rival youth gangs at Northland shopping centre in Preston in May that sent scores of shoppers scrambling.

Northland was sent into lockdown again less than a month after the machete attack, when an allegedly stolen four-wheel-drive ploughed through bollards and sped through the retail centre in an attempt to evade police, narrowly missing shoppers in June.

The following month, Saurabh Anand was seriously injured and required emergency surgery to have one of his hands reattached after youths armed with a machete attacked him outside the Central Square Shopping Centre in Altona Meadows.

The state government has since introduced tougher penalties for people who assault retail and hospitality workers, including prison terms of up to five years. Summary offences for lower-level assaults or for threatening or intimidating a worker carry penalties of up to six months in jail.

So far, the police and PSO teams have been deployed to four shopping centres – Northland, Highpoint in Maribyrnong, Eastland in Ringwood and Fountain Gate in Narre Warren.

The centres were selected based on police intelligence and Crime Statistics Agency Victoria data which showed there were 799 reported offences at Northland shopping complex from July 2024 to June 2025; 477 at Highpoint; 501 at Fountain Gate; and 600 at Ringwood. In comparison, other major centres have much lower figures.

Police at Northland shopping centre in Preston after an allegedly stolen car ploughed through the centre in June.

All four locations have been declared designated search areas, which allows officers equipped with detection wands to check people for dangerous weapons such as knives.

Since the operation started on December 8, officers have made a total of 109 arrests and seized 30 weapons, including a baton, a dagger, a set of knuckle-dusters, and three knives in a single day.

They have also issued 41 cautions, handed out 38 penalties, directed 100 people to move on from the shopping centres, and recorded a total of 217 offences. A third of those were for theft and shoplifting.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Bob Hill said police would continue to deploy the teams in the coming months based on intelligence.

“As a police force, we simply will not stand for those who bring violence, aggression and weapons to places we should all feel safe,” he said.

Retail groups see the early results as confirmation that the operation should become a permanent feature, similar to dedicated retail crime taskforces in South Australia, New South Wales and the ACT.

Fleur Brown, the chief industry affairs officer at the Australian Retailers Association, said crime data showed retail offences in Victoria had increased by 63 per cent since 2022, while theft had gone up by more than 90 per cent in that same period.

“Repeat offenders are a significant part of the challenge, with 60 per cent of retail crime incidents caused by around 10 per cent of offenders,” Brown said.

Shopping Centre Council of Australia chief executive Angus Nardi said it was clear a high police presence deterred violence, aggression and the use of dangerous weapons. He said the industry supported wand searches by police as “knives, knuckle-dusters and daggers have absolutely no place in shopping centres”.

Operation Pulse is scheduled to run until the end of February. Officers can join the shopping centre patrols on a voluntary basis on “planned rest days” and get paid overtime wages for the shifts.

The initiative is among a suit of measures announced by Victoria Police and the state government in November, which included removing permanent night PSO patrols at some train stations and the creation of a reservist force to free officers from desk jobs.

The changes, which are the most significant overhaul of the PSO force in a decade, also allow the security officers to travel on the public transport network and patrol the shopping areas immediately around those stations.

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