In short:
Police are investigating after thieves broke into the Wyndham Warriors BMX Club on Derrimut Road, Hoppers Crossing, between 22 and 24 April, with the club saying more than $40,000 worth of bikes and equipment was stolen. CCTV captured the offenders wheeling bikes and gear down the street, and the club says it waited more than five hours for police to attend.
Thieves wheel bikes down street
Police are investigating a burglary at the Wyndham Warriors BMX Club on Derrimut Road, Hoppers Crossing, after volunteers say more than $40,000 worth of equipment, including bikes and a hydraulic ram, was stolen from the popular community track.
In a statement, Victoria Police said officers were notified on Friday 24 April that the club had been broken into “sometime between 6.30pm on 22 April and 10.45am on 24 April”, a roughly 40-hour window stretching from Wednesday evening to Friday morning. Police said “numerous items were stolen including a hydraulic ram and electrical items” and confirmed “the investigation is ongoing.”
A club representative who attended the scene on Friday afternoon said the club’s current president, Jordan, called him around lunchtime after the club received a tip-off. He arrived at the track at 12.43pm and said he saw “considerable damage” before fellow members Erin, Gino and Dan arrived to help complete a stocktake.
“We have had over $40,000 worth of equipment stolen,” the club said in a public post on social media. The club says CCTV captured the offenders wheeling bikes and equipment out of the venue and down the street, and that the footage has been provided to police. In the same post, the club said it had “video footage of these lovely people walking everything back to their house.”
The club has also told members it has “NO loan equipment available for the foreseeable future” as a result of the burglary, a particular blow for a club that runs coaching clinics and offers loaner bikes to beginners trying out the sport.
The representative said the club contacted police while members assessed the damage, with “Gino on the phone with a police lady doing a crime report.” He said “several calls were made to the police over hours, with the reply someone is on the way.”
The club says it waited more than five hours for officers to attend the scene. “We have been waiting for over 5 hours for the police to attend and assist,” the club said in a separate post.
While waiting for officers, the representative said members loaded the club’s remaining valuables into their own vehicles. “We filled up vehicles with the last of the club’s valuables and I left,” he said.
The Wyndham Warriors BMX Club, founded in 2005, runs from the Heathdale Glen Orden Wetlands track behind the Derrimut Road fire station, and caters to riders from age three to over fifty. The representative said the club had been working to recover from the impact of COVID-19, when he said membership fell from 75 to 12. “The club went from 75 members to 12 when shut down due to covid,” he said. “Losing the ability to run events destroys clubs.”
It is the latest setback for a club that, as Wyndham TV reported in 2023, had been steadily rebuilding and hosted Round 3 of the AusCycling BMX State Series at its renovated facility, its biggest event since 2019.
The representative said new facility lighting was due to be installed at the venue, and that he had personally asked Wyndham City Council to install additional lights and alarms to protect community assets that, he said, are “run and maintained by volunteers.” Wyndham City Council has previously upgraded the BMX track, with earlier infrastructure works including a resurfaced start hill.
The representative also claimed the club was one of three local facilities targeted in the same week, alongside a council pavilion and a school. “Perhaps following the club building, the council pavilion and the school all in the same week, this needs to be revised,” he said. Wyndham TV has not independently verified the additional break-ins.
The latest reported burglary follows a string of similar incidents across the municipality. Wyndham TV has previously reported on a separate burglary at the Hoppers Crossing Soccer Club in June last year, with a man later charged in connection with that incident. Wider Victoria Police data, covered in Wyndham TV’s reporting on rising crime numbers across Wyndham, has shown burglary and break-and-enter offences trending upwards across the municipality.
Anyone with information about the latest incident is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or report online at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.
