Smashing spree

By Tania Martin
MONBULK’S Leading Senior Constable Peter Edyvane and his brother Paul last week foiled a vandal’s late-night glass smashing rampage through the streets of Mt Dandenong.
The off-duty cops were leaving the town’s hotel shortly after 9pm last Tuesday night (4 August) when they heard a loud smash.
“I thought there had been a car crash or something,” Leading Sen Const Edyvane said.
He looked across the road and saw a man wielding a metal bar smashing a florist shop window.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing…I yelled out,” Leading Sen Const Edyvane.
Leading Sen Const Edyvane and his brother, who is also a police officer, chased the man as he fled down the street to his car.
“I didn’t think we would catch up with him but wanted to get his number plate,” he said.
But the pair caught up with the vandal, reached into the car and took the man’s keys.
The man was taken by police to Maroondah Hospital for treatment.
Leading Sen Const Edyvane said it was definitely not how he expected his night to end.
Police later discovered the man had gone on a window smashing spree and had broken windows at Mt Dandenong Primary School and Churinga Restaurant, before hitting the Flower Patch florist shop in the town’s main street.
Flower Patch owner Angela Onezime said it would cost in excess of $2500 to have the window replaced and she wasn’t insured for the damage.
She believed it was covered under her landlord’s insurance.
Ms Onezime also lost between $600 and $800 worth of teddy bears which were sitting in the window.
“All my stuffed teddies I can’t sell because they are now full of glass,” she said.
But Ms Onezime said the biggest challenge had been knowing what to do.
“I have never had this problem before and I didn’t know who to ring,” she said.
“It was a big shock.”
Mt Dandenong Primary School principal Wendy Britt said she was shocked to find the school’s front door shattered on Wednesday morning.
“The two panels of the double doors were totally smashed in,” she said.
Ms Britt said she was amazed the vandal had managed to break the doors as they were made of thick safety glass.
Police had not interviewed the man by the time the Mail went to press.