The Melbourne Snap⚡- Monday 17 February
Neo-nazis in inner suburb, Melbourne's ripoff cabbies under microscope, manhunt after shooting and coldest February night on record.
G’day and welcome back to The Melbourne Snap. Did the heating go on this weekend?It got chilly! Welcome new subscribers. If you have stumbled across this newsletter you can sign up for free at melbournesnap.substack.com. Before today’s edition begins I have a question for you:
Now on to Monday’s edition.
🏋🏻♀️Jewish leaders and politicians have condemned a white supremacist bootcamp held in the inner south’s Elwood where neo-Nazis led fitness drills alongside teenage recruits. - Nine News.
➡️The group, including known figures like Jacob Hersant, - the first person in Victoria charged and jailed for performing a Nazi salute - staged a training session with military drills, sparring, and a photo shoot.
➡️Local neo-Nazis have been documented recruiting aggressively among young men in Australia.
🚕A leak of confidential files from Australia's largest taxi company, A2B, has revealed accusations of widespread rorting within its industry empire. - Nick McKenzie, Brittany Busch and Amelia Ballinger, The Age
➡️The Victorian government will review the use of Cabcharge products - a payment system for taxis - amid widespread fraud involving Melbourne taxi drivers overcharging vulnerable passengers, including elderly and disabled individuals. - Henrietta Cook and Nick McKenzie, The Age
⛅ Monday weather
Crime Watch
This section is dedicated to crime news. Scroll on if you want to skip to lighter news. The section tends to be longer than normal after a weekend.
🚨A manhunt is underway after a shooting on Melbourne’s south-eastern edge left a man seriously injured in the early hours of Sunday. Police say three men arrived at a Ripplebrook Walk, Pakenham, home around 1am, leading to an altercation in which one was shot.
➡️The injured man remains under police guard in the hospital, while the other two fled and are still at large. The home’s occupant stayed and will be interviewed, with a crime scene now under investigation. - Victoria Police
⚫A 36-year-old man has died after fleeing from police trying to arrest him for alleged family violence offences at Lynbrook Village Shopping Centre in Melbourne's south-east. The man inflicted self-harm while barricaded in a toilet cubicle on Friday and, despite receiving medical assistance, died at the scene. - Victoria Police
👮Cops are investigating two separate crime sprees across Melbourne’s east and south-east on Saturday, with multiple service stations targeted by groups of offenders who stole cash and cigarettes, and in some cases, assaulted staff.
➡️Officers are urging the public to secure their homes and vehicles as part of ongoing efforts to curb burglary and car theft. - Victoria Police
👊Police are investigating an assault in Melbourne’s CBD, where a man was attacked in a shop after a verbal altercation on Bourke Street, reportedly sparked by a comment about the Israel-Palestine conflict. - Victoria Police
💊Two people have been charged following a major investigation into online drug trafficking via an encrypted app. Police seized large quantities of drugs, cash, and weapons during a search at a residential property in Ivanhoe, north-east Melbourne last week. - Victoria Police
🏍️Two men have been arrested following a road rage incident in which a 46-year-old man was allegedly assaulted by a group of motorcyclists on Sydney Road in Somerton. Police executed search warrants at multiple properties, seizing evidence, and the suspects are expected to be charged on summons with dangerous driving offences. - Victoria Police
🔪Two people have now been charged after a 16-year-old boy was critically injured in a stabbing at a Forest Hill shopping centre car park in the east of the city last December. - Victoria Police
🔪Two youths were reportedly apprehended by police and security at Watergardens Shopping Centre, north-west Melbourne yesterday around 4:30pm. Shoppers claimed they had been carrying knives. - Brimbank Community
❗ Did I miss anything? Let me know!
🎵What a difference a day makes. The St Kilda Festival (mentioned in Friday’s edition) ran this weekend. Saturday was, by all accounts, a bit of a washout as the weather punished the beachside suburb. But Sunday was a different story. People were dancing in the streets, there were blue skies and the feel-good vibe was in full effect. - Various
🥶 Summer snow fell on Saturday at Mt Buller and Mount Hotham in the Victorian Alps. Meanwhile, Melbourne shivered through its coldest February night on record (9.9C). - Philippe Perez and Kellie Lazzaro, ABC News.
🩺 The Royal Melbourne Hospital has suspended a surgeon for allegedly making “disparaging” comments about a colleague he claimed “killed a patient”, court documents have revealed. - Sarah Booth, Herald Sun
📉A Melbourne tradie paid nearly $20,000 to a digital marketing firm, Supple Digital, but saw no leads and only four website visits per month after almost a year of service. Despite multiple attempts to fix the issues, including paying extra, the Bentleigh electrician’s search rankings declined, leading him to seek early termination of the contract though he was asked to pay 50% of the remaining fee. - Frank Chung, news.com.au
🦍 Melbourne Zoo is mourning the unexpected death of its beloved 20-year-old Western Lowland Gorilla, Kimya. Known for her intelligence and loving nature, Kimya was a beloved mother to Kanzi and a cherished member of the zoo’s community. Vets are still trying to work out how she died on Saturday morning. - Zoos Victoria
🚧A man is recovering in hospital after flipping his vintage car and crashing into a fence and tree in Narre Warren, with witnesses amazed he survived the wreck. Residents in the south-east suburb are calling for better traffic safety measures following the high-speed crash. - Nine News
🏗️Tunnelling on the state government’s $26 billion North East Link has come to a halt after a sinkhole emerged near the road project’s two boring machines. - Tom Cowie, The Age
👷Victorians can submit names for the twin tunnels of the $10.2bn West Gate Tunnel project. Participants who suggest two names will have the chance to win a $500 fuel voucher and donate $2,500 to a charity, with submissions open until March 31.
➡️The public naming of state assets has been trialled elsewhere in the world. The UK infamously has a submarine called Boaty McFace and Scotland’s fleet of gritters includes Han Snow-Lo and Snowmer Simpson. Unfortunately, the Victorian Government has the final say on the tunnel name. A committee makes the final selection. Boo. - Victoria’s Big Build
🚚There are calls for an urgent inquiry into local councils abusing their powers after the City of Casey seized residents' cars on private property. The owners were left bewildered as council officers allegedly trespassed on their land to take the vehicles with zero paperwork. - 7 News
➡️The council told their version of events saying they had “found several unregistered vehicles, shipping containers, boats, jet skis, trailers” - City of Casey Council.
⛺A councillor is pushing for a three-month investigation into local laws on encampments in Port Phillip to improve safety and give authorities more powers to remove groups living on public land. Long-term homeless encampments across St Kilda and backpacker beach camps have upset residents in the past. - TWiSK
📢Community Noticeboard📢
📌”Join us for one of our most popular business networking events of the year - our International Women’s Day Breakfast. Date: Thursday 6 March, 2025. Location: Hotel Chadstone, Dandenong Road” - more details
📌”Multiple houses in Cecil Street, Yarraville are holding a garage sale. Come along and grab a snag while perusing our treasures at great prices. It’s on the 1 March.” - More details
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👑And finally…The drama surrounding Melbourne’s most influential son, Rupert Murdoch, intensified this weekend. James Murdoch publicly broke the family’s rule of silence about its affairs, sharing his emotional struggle over family betrayals and dysfunction, allegedly fueled by his News Corp founder father’s actions. The revelation, published in The Atlantic, comes amid a bitter legal fight over Lachlan Murdoch's bid to control the $66 billion media empire.
Thank you for reading edition 64 of The Melbourne Snap.
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