Police have arrested four teenage boys after a car chase through Melbourne’s east and the CBD, culminating in the boys fleeing on foot at Bourke Street Mall.
Investigators say the youths, aged between 15 and 17, first came to their attention allegedly driving erratically in a BMW on the Eastern Freeway in Doncaster about 12:30pm.
Officers followed the car to Melbourne’s CBD where a pedestrian was allegedly struck on Exhibition Street.Â
The BMW, believed to have been allegedly stolen yesterday in Melbourne’s inner east, was dumped in Bourke Street Mall, a busy pedestrian and tram zone, with the four boys fleeing on foot.
The BMW, allegedly stolen from the Boroondara area yesterday, is towed from Bourke Street Mall. (ABC News)
Police say all four were arrested a short time later in Lonsdale Street and did not have weapons.
They are currently being interviewed by police.
The woman who was hit by the car is being treated in hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Vision of the mall showed a white BMW with partially shattered front and rear windshields parked over the tram tracks that run through the shopping strip.
A number of people were also gathered in the street.
A witness has told the ABC he had just finished lunch at a restaurant on the corner of Bourke and Swanston Streets when he saw a white BMW driving down the mall — a pedestrian and tram area — at about 50 to 60 kilometres an hour.
“Then as we turned the corner we noticed police cars were coming down as well,” the witness, Vince Galasso, said.
Vince Galasso says he saw a white BMW speeding down Bourke Street Mall. (ABC News)
“As we were approaching and got near the car we saw that police were coming [the other] way as well.
“They were coming from every direction.”
Another witness, James Duffy, said he was walking through Myer when he saw “teenagers just running straight through Myer, straight through the Emporium”.
“Like probably one minute later I saw about five cops running through heavily armed,” he said.
Yarra Trams said the route 86 and 96 trams were being diverted away from Bourke Street Mall due to the “emergency services request”.Â
Footage from the scene shows the white BMW being towed away as police officers remain stationed throughout the mall.