Four teenage boys held after high-speed car chase through Australia’s Melbourne

MELBOURNE – Four teenage boys have been arrested after a car tore through Melbourne’s city centre on Sept 29, injuring one pedestrian, the police said.

The incident sent jitters through the city because it happened in the same part of Melbourne as a deadly rampage in 2017, when a man drove his car into pedestrians, killing five.

The police began pursuing the car, believed to have been stolen, in the latest incident after it was seen driving “erratically” on a highway in the east of Australia’s second-largest city, the Victoria police said.

The car then tore into the city’s central business district, where it hit a woman who was later taken to hospital with injuries that were said not to be life-threatening.

The suspects then dumped the vehicle, fleeing on foot before being arrested outside a shopping centre, the police said.

The chase lasted around an hour, a police spokesperson told AFP.

They also denied local media reports that the suspects were armed with machetes.

The suspects are between the ages of 15 and 17, the police said.

Local TV footage showed the car, a white BMW, with a large dent in its front windscreen.

Witness Vince Galasso told national broadcaster ABC the car had been driving around 50kmh to 60kmh through the pedestrian area.

Another said they had seen “teenagers just running”.

The witness, Mr James Duffy, was quoted as saying: “Like probably one minute later, I saw about five cops running through heavily armed.”