Three brothers from South Morang who staged and filmed hoax attacks on members of the public, including a bomb hoax in Altona, have been charged and put on strict bail conditions preventing them from uploading similar videos online.
The brothers, aged 20, 18 and 16, were taken into custody this morning over a series of prankster videos posted online, including one showing a bomb hoax at Altona beach.
They were later charged with public nuisance, possessing a prohibited weapon and behaving in an offensive manner in a public place.
The three brothers have said they do the videos to make fun of people’s attitudes towards Middle Eastern people.
The latest video showed a mock drive-by shooting in which a replica AK-47 was directed at a young girl and a man, believed to be her father.
Counter Terrorism Command detectives had executed a warrant on Thursday morning at South Morang.
Three men surrendered themselves at the Crime Command Police Complex about 8.35am on Thursday.
Tipping point
Assistant Commissioner Ross Guenther said the tipping point for police was the escalation of the video content.
“We certainly don’t see it as childhood pranks,” he said.
“The concern is the anxiety it raises within our community and, more broadly, you would see from the posts that they purport to have a reflection of terrorists and representing them as Arabs or Muslims.
“It’s caused some significant alarm and anxiety in our community when we already have a heightened security environment,” he said.
“We certainly don’t want to see this sort of behaviour proliferate.
“It’s most problematic in terms of building community resilience and confidence, more generally, to report things that they’re anxious about.
“Further to that, it’s also very problematic for police attending incidents like this. If they came across such an incident when some of these were made there’s a likelihood, a potential, for serious injury.”
He said a number of complaints about the videos had been made to Crime Stoppers.
Assistant Commissioner Guenther said police would pursue having the videos taken off social media, but said the videos were held offshore.
Police Commissioner Graham Ashton told 3AW the trio would be charged “with whatever they can be charged with”.
He said any profit from the videos could be confiscated if they were proceeds of crime.
The two adults have been bailed to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on May 20.
Bail conditions state they must not produce, upload or publish any offensive images or video on social media.
A 16-year-old boy was also bailed to appear at a children’s court at a later date.
