A man who terrorized a mobile speed camera operator while donning a horror movie mask will appear in court.
On July 5, the 36-year-old guy is charged with attempting to break into the automobile and telling the cameraman to “get a real job” while donning a Scream mask.
A white four-wheel-drive pickup halted in front of the red Mitsubishi Outlander camera car as it was parked on Exford Road in Melton South, 37 kilometres west of Melbourne’s central business district.
The driver wearing a mask got out of his vehicle, ‘aggressively’ approached the front passenger side, and began yelling and bashing on the window. The speed camera operator informed police.
According to a story in The Herald Sun, the operator claimed that “the man with the mask started screaming at me and advised me to get a real job.”
He “continued yelling at me and banging on the window of the automobile.”
Also charged with insulting the camera operator earlier that day at 3:20 pm is a 51-year-old lady.
After allegedly yelling and slamming the front passenger window, the woman allegedly walked away before coming back five minutes later carrying a homemade placard that read “speed camera.”
Before the man wearing the Scream mask emerged, she is said to have hung out beside the automobile for as long as an hour.
When a passing police car stopped to help, the woman allegedly verbally abused the man while he was speaking to the officer.
The woman was detained to establish her identity after first refusing to provide her details.
Both parties will likely be charged with unlawful assault and appear in court later.
Anyone with information, dashcam footage, or who saw the attack is requested by police to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-333-TIPS or file a private complaint online.
At least five vehicles and operators have been targeted in a string of attacks on mobile speed camera cars since April.
On Monday, a golf ball struck a camera operator as they were inside the vehicle in the seaside town of Rye on the Mornington Peninsula.
On June 22, a masked vandal brandishing a metal pole broke the glass and tore the tires off of a mobile speed camera vehicle that was stationed on the side of the Bellarine Highway in Point Lonsdale, regional Victoria.
The incident, which the police described as “cowardly” and “high-end criminal behaviour,” left the camera operator unharmed.
Nine days prior, on June 13, a four-wheel-drive slammed a Victorian traffic camera vehicle three times when it was parked on Craigieburn Road East in Wollert, a suburb 26 kilometres north of Melbourne.
A masked man brandishing a metal pole damaged the car’s side mirrors as a female road safety camera operator was inside on Anzac Day in St Leonards.
An operator in Tullamarine was soon the target of a vehicle that was stalking him before its occupants stepped out and attacked the vehicle.