AFL coach makes citizen’s arrest of alleged car thief in Hawthorn

AFL coach Michael Voss has chased down and detained an alleged car thief who tried to flee the scene of a crash in Melbourne's east.

Transcript

00:00It was a very strange morning for residents in Hawthorne when they woke up at around 8.30

00:06this morning to find a stolen Mercedes vehicle flipped on its side in front of an apartment

00:11block lying on the footpath.

00:13Now opposite that apartment block was this cafe and inside the cafe at the time was the

00:17Carlton football coach Michael Voss and the cafe owner James Lasky.

00:21They both ran after the two offenders and managed to tackle down the 16-year-old boy

00:26who had a weapon on him at the time.

00:28The Carlton football coach Michael Voss stayed with the boy until police came.

00:32He's now in custody while they're still searching for the other male offender.

00:36Now speaking to Mr Lasky after the event he said that the car sounded like a lightning

00:41strike.

00:42Quite a big bang and then everyone sort of looked out and I think the initial thought

00:46process was to see if everyone's alright and then they sort of jumped out and then when

00:51they realised what had happened there was that initial shock and they realised that

00:55they've got to get out of here so they ran up the street pretty quickly and we were fortunate

01:01enough to get one of them.

01:02Witnesses say it's extremely lucky that nobody was injured given the time of day when parents

01:07were doing school drop off at the local primary school and many people were out having a coffee

01:11or walking their dogs.

01:13Police believe that the car was stolen from Ivanhoe East and they're going to keep investigating

01:17this case.