An alleged early morning attack on a central Melbourne ATM has left one man with \u201clife-changing\u201d facial injuries.<\/p>\n
Police said a device ignited in the face of one of three people who allegedly used homemade explosives to gain access to the ATM.<\/p>\n
The incident, which occurred about 2.45pm on Victoria Street, left the man with \u201cserious and life-changing injuries,\u201d a Victoria Police statement said.<\/p>\n
Police believe the alleged offenders fled the scene on foot.<\/p>\n
The injured man was found on Peel Street a short time later, before being rushed to hospital with serious facial injuries.<\/p>\n
He remains hospitalised under police guard.<\/p>\n
Arson and Explosives Squad detectives are now investigating the alleged arson and theft.<\/p>\n
Arson and Explosives Squad Detective Inspector Chris Murray called the incident a \u201ctargeted and opportunistic attack\u201d on the ATM.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have said it before, and I will say it again: fire and incendiary devices are volatile, unpredictable, and incredibly dangerous in untrained hands,\u201d Detective Inspector Murray said in the statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo other men present at the scene fled, leaving their associate severely injured. It is only a matter of time until you are identified and arrested \u2013 I would appeal to you to visit your nearest police station and hand yourselves in before then.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police also do not believe the ATM explosion is linked to Operation Eclipse, which was launched in April in response to recent incidents targeting Melbourne hospitality venues.<\/p>\n
The operation aimed to target organised crime groups believed to be involved in the spate of criminal activity.<\/p>\n
Police are urging anyone with information or CCTV footage of Wednesday\u2019s incident to contact Crime Stoppers via 1800 333 000 or report at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An alleged early morning attack on a central Melbourne ATM has left one man with \u201clife-changing\u201d facial injuries.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11322,11323,4838,11548,260,1047],"class_list":["post-10491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-atm","tag-explosion","tag-investigation","tag-life-changing-injuries","tag-melbourne","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}