{"id":383114,"date":"2025-12-31T18:37:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T18:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/383114\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T18:37:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T18:37:22","slug":"alleged-car-thief-home-invader-found-after-two-day-police-hunt-in-latrobe-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/383114\/","title":{"rendered":"Alleged car thief, home invader found after two-day police hunt in Latrobe Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police have arrested a 34-year-old man after a two-day hunt in Latrobe Valley that saw multiple police vehicles rammed and one officer seriously injured.<\/p>\n

The Morwell Crime Investigation Unit had been investigating a spate of recent crimes in the area over the past five days.<\/p>\n

The crime spree included aggravated carjacking, the ramming of a police vehicle and aggravated burglary \u2014 during which the suspect is said to have entered a house with an axe.<\/p>\n

Police say the man was captured when the allegedly stolen red SUV crashed through the garden wall of a home on Anzac Road in Trafalgar on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

\"Damaged<\/p>\n

The man crashed an allegedly stolen vehicle through a brick wall and into a Trafalgar resident’s front yard. (ABC News: Jack Frano Colantuono)<\/p>\n

Police said the crashed car would be towed away to be forensically tested.<\/p>\n

‘Just another day’<\/p>\n

Homeowner Ted Dorling, 78, was working at a community vegetable patch in town when the crash occurred in his front yard.<\/p>\n

“I got home to find a car had parked in my front garden and spat bricks everywhere and made a heck of a mess,” Mr Dorling said.\"Man<\/p>\n

Ted Dorling says he will make an insurance claim after someone crashed an SUV into his front yard. (ABC News: Jack Franco Colantuono)<\/p>\n

“It’s just another day, really. It happens.<\/p>\n

“We will chase up insurance on it now and on the house insurance and see how we go, but it all takes time.”<\/p>\n

Mr Dorling said his wife, who suffers from dementia, was asleep inside the house when the driver smashed through their brick wall.<\/p>\n

“It never woke her up, apparently,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This sort of stuff happens too often actually; it’s just becoming a problem.”<\/p>\n

Police officer hospitalised<\/p>\n

At about 8.30am on Wednesday, police received a tip that suggested the wanted man was driving a stolen vehicle in the town of Tyers.<\/p>\n

Later in the morning, police saw the car in Morwell where they made two attempts to stop the driver.<\/p>\n

Both pursuits were called off because of his dangerous driving.<\/p>\n

\"SUV<\/p>\n

The crash ripped a hole in Ted Dorling’s garden wall. (ABC News: Jack Franco Colantuono)<\/p>\n

Later, Baw Baw Highway Patrol officers saw the car speeding down the Princes Highway in Trafalgar.<\/p>\n

The local police crew, supported by uniformed officers, detectives, the Air Wing unit and the dog squad attempted to intercept the driver.<\/p>\n

Officers threw stop stick tyre-deflation devices on School Road before the driver rammed a parked police car and hit a male officer, who was hospitalised with serious lower-body injuries.<\/p>\n

Police say the driver then rammed two more unmarked police cars before it crashed into a residential perimeter wall on the corner of Anzac Road and Church Street.<\/p>\n

Police arrested the man in a nearby backyard and he was taken to hospital.<\/p>\n

\"Nine<\/p>\n

Police arresting the man in Trafalgar. (Supplied: Peter Negus)<\/p>\n

‘Very frightening’<\/p>\n

The owner of the SUV, Moe woman Amy Smith, had been swimming with her children at her parents’ Tanjil South property at about 5pm yesterday when she suddenly saw someone driving her car out of the driveway.<\/p>\n

“We thought it has to be the guy that they’ve been trying to find through the bush,” the 29-year-old said.<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/p>\n

Moe woman Amy Smith saw her car being taken from the driveway of her parents’ home. (ABC News: Jack Franco Colantuono)<\/p>\n

“We sort of frantically called Triple Zero and some people down my parents’ road went after the car and everyone chipped in to try and help out.<\/p>\n

“[It was] very frightening. A bit overwhelming.”<\/p>\n

Ms Smith said she had left her keys in the car since they were at a private and rural property.<\/p>\n

Locals later told her they saw her car being driven around Moe.<\/p>\n

“People just kept updating me as to where they were seeing the car driving,” Ms Smith said.<\/p>\n

“I was taking my husband to work this morning and the car actually passed us, so that was a bit of a shock that he was still driving around in it.<\/p>\n

“I had a lot of random people messaging me saying ‘now he’s in Churchill’, ‘now he’s back in Morwell’ \u2026 a bit of phone tag, really.”<\/p>\n

Ms Smith said she was unable to sleep knowing the man was still on the run, but was relieved to hear police had made an arrest.<\/p>\n

“It was hectic, I’m glad he didn’t actually hurt anyone seriously,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police have arrested a 34-year-old man after a two-day hunt in Latrobe Valley that saw multiple police vehicles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[205992,843,1108,48,43,44,1158,7452,58040,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-383114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-axe","9":"tag-cars","10":"tag-court","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-police","15":"tag-search","16":"tag-theft","17":"tag-top-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topnews","20":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}