Gabrielle Knowles, Tayissa Barone and Claire Tyrrell
Police are hunting a gang who terrorised residents with a tomahawk during a car theft rampage in East Victoria Park and Carlisle early yesterday.
Harry, 84, says he was scared when a man wielding a tomahawk confronted him as he came out of his unit after noticing a young man lurking in the driveway.
“I backed away to try to close the door but I was too late and he was in,” Harry explained.
“He’s standing in the lounge room with a tomahawk above his head saying, ‘Give me your keys and I won’t kill you’.”
Harry said he quickly handed over his keys and the bandit fled.
The man’s accomplices joined him in the white Holden Cruze and they sped away from the Memorial Avenue unit.
Harry, whose wife was also at home at the time, was the fourth target of the violent gang yesterday.
Police received the first call for help about 8.20am, after a young woman woke to find a man ransacking her bedroom.
She and two flatmates told police two men had been in their Beatty Avenue home and stole their handbags and mobile phones.
Minutes later, another victim, Michael, was at his car at his mother-in-law’s Bank Street home when two men came up the driveway.
The 49-year-old initially stood his ground as the men yelled: “Give me yourf . . . . .g keys.”
Then he noticed they had a weapon. “As they got about 5m away, I saw one had a tomahawk axe, so I told my son to run back inside and I followed and tried to close the door.”
As Michael slammed the door, he heard the thump of the tomahawk striking it.
“We were shaking,” he said. “But we’re safe and we’re lucky.”
The men fled as he yelled that he was calling the police.
Police believe the same gang then crossed the railway line and confronted a great-grandmother in Lion Street at her Carlisle nursing home unit.
Esma Brown, 81, was putting out her rubbish when the men confronted her and demanded her keys.
“I tried to shut the door quickly and they pushed it out of the way. They pushed me and I went over.
“They were yelling at me the whole time saying, ‘keys, keys, car keys’ and I was saying I haven’t got a car.
“They took the house keys out of my hand while they were yelling. When I fell, they threw the keys behind me and took off.”
Mrs Brown had bruising to one eye and her glasses were broken. Police believe the thieves then ran to another part of the seniors’ complex, where they confronted Harry and took his car. Police last night released images of three of four men they want to question about the crime spree.
They believe the men are aged between 16 and 24.
They have also urged anyone who sees the stolen white Holden Cruze, registration 1EFG 195, to call them on 131 444.