A knife-wielding man was shot by police in Melbourne after several people were stabbed. Video/Josh Penny
He's the hero that Australia deserves, but not everybody thinks the homeless legend who faced off with a knife-wielding attacker was doing the right thing.
Michael Rogers, 46, emerged from a crowd of onlookers during the attack Friday afternoon in downtown Melbourne, in which one person was fatally stabbed and two others wounded.
Rogers, who is homeless with few possessions, began ramming a shopping trolley into Hassan Khalif Shire Ali in a bid to help police.
Dubbed the Trolley Man for his shopping cart heroics, Rogers sent social media into meltdown over the weekend after footage emerged of him trying to ram into Ali as he attempted to stab police officers in Bourke St.
The makeshift crime-fighter's mobile phone was broken during the awe-inspiring incident and a crowd-funding campaign was launched yesterday by the National Homeless Collective to help him "get back on his feet". Already, it has raked in more than A$115,000 ($123,000).
Michael Rogers pushed the trolley at the attacker. Photo / news.com.au
Despite the mainstream consensus that Rogers is now a bona fide Aussie hero, a backlash from a small minority of cynics is growing.
One such cynic is Victorian Police's commissioner Graham Ashton, who told 3AW today that Rogers' actions could have had potentially dangerous consequences.
"I don't like to criticise people in that situation, he's acting instinctively about what he's looking at in front of him," Ashton said.
"But if a trolley had hit a police member and knocked him over and then this offender got on top of him, we could have had a tragic consequence.
"I think he was trying to support the police in his own way, so I haven't been jumping on him over the weekend."
On the GoFundMe page for Rogers, cynical commenters have also pointed out that Mr Rogers could have hurt himself or a police officer if he had toppled over.
"I think that this guy was incredibly stupid. Brave maybe … but basically very stupid, and could have caused more harm by getting in the way," wrote one cynic on the fundraising page.
"I hate these things that raise money for a single individual well in excess of what is needed because it always comes at the expense of people giving generously elsewhere to address systemic problems that lead to the situations he was in the first place.
"You don't fix homelessness (or this man's life actually) by throwing $50k at him personally."
However, Professor Clive Williams, a terrorism expert and visiting professor at the Australian National University told news.com.au he would have done the same thing in Rogers' place if he saw police officers struggling.
"If somebody can help a police officer, then it's a good thing," he said. "The police are part of our community and I feel sorry for them, because in a lot environments they are seen as the enemy and it shouldn't be that way.
"They are only young people (the police who tackled Ali) and they're put in difficult situations sometimes. The danger is that is that, if somebody's not trained and doesn't know what they're doing, they could become a casualty themselves. — but I wouldn't want to deter people from helping the police if they possibly can."
But not everyone was impressed with Michael Rogers' crime-fighting attempts. Photo / Twitter
Donna Stolzenberg, National Homeless Collective chief executive, told The Australian Rogers, who has a long and chequered history with law enforcement, had put himself in harm's way to help.
"He got up to protect two police officers … we don't see that much, he just jumped up without any thought of concern himself," she said.
"There were dozens of people standing around and he was the only one who jumped in there and put his life at risk for strangers … he is the epitome of being a hero."
Rogers himself said he wasn't a hero, telling Channel Seven "I threw the trolley straight at him, and I got him. I didn't quite get him down, though. I'm no hero".
Yesterday he told The Age he "just wanted to help and do something right for the first time in my life".
The paper reported he had been "in and out of jail" for some 20 years, including a five-year sentence for aggravated burglary, and that he'd had a long history of drug use.
"I haven't had good experiences with police," Rogers told the paper, adding his move to help on Friday was a "spur of the moment" decision.
It's understood he has a public housing apartment but chooses to be homeless.
Stolzenberg said she was aware of Rogers' criminal and drug history and will work to connect him with homeless services and ensure the money is used in ways that will not put him at risk.
"All funds donated to this campaign will go directly to Mr Rogers to help get him back on his feet," the organisation's site reads.
The original fundraising target was set at just A$5000 on November 10 but within hours an overwhelming amount of support prompted charity organisers to increase it to A$45,000. That target was also soon exceeded.
"He's a hero in our eyes and he can do what he feels best with any funds he receives. He risked his own life that day for nothing in return and you can't put a price on that."
The charity has since expressed how blown away it is by everyone's generosity and "spirit in helping our hero 'Trolley man' get back on his feet".
"We don't actually have a set target to reach but due to the incredible generosity we've seen so far we'll keep increasing the total accordingly," the charity said.
"We've far surpassed our original goal. Let's aim for the sky. Our hero absolutely deserves it."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Somali-born attacker, from Melbourne's northwestern suburbs, had violated the nation's trust. Photo / Getty
Somali-born Australian Ali, 30, stabbed three men on the street in Friday's attack, killing a well-known restaurateur and wounding two other men.
Sisto Malaspina, 74, died a short distance from the popular Pellegrini's Espresso Bar he had run for more than 40 years. The other two men are recovering in a hospital from non-life-threatening injuries.
Victoria state Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said Ali had also made an "unsophisticated" plan for his vehicle to explode to cause many more fatalities. He had placed several barbecue gas canisters in his pickup, but they failed to ignite.
Ali was known to federal police and his Australian passport was cancelled in 2015 out of concern he planned to travel to Syria to fight with the Islamic State group.
Rogers was one of two bystanders who stepped in as the killer tried to claim more victims in the city. Witness footage of the incident uploaded to social media showed Rogers running to one side of the street to get the trolley before pushing it towards Ali who was wielding a knife and lunging at police.
The trolley appeared to startle Ali before the man who pushed it tripped and fell to the ground. Ali then ran across the road, followed by police, as Rogers got up and gave chase, pushing his cart towards the attacker a second time.
Moments later, Ali was shot in the chest by police. He later died in hospital.
Rogers' actions gained him widespread praise on social media by users who dubbed him "trolley man" and called for him to receive a medal or be made Prime Minister of Australia. Rogers was reportedly unaware of the attention being heaped on him for his actions.
While Rogers won praise from the community, senior Victorian police officials were divided in their reaction.
Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said Rogers' help was appreciated by police on the scene.
"There's no doubt he acted bravely," he told ABC radio. "His assistance was greatly appreciated."
But later Patton's superior, Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said Rogers' actions could have led to a tragic outcome.
"I don't like to criticise people in that situation, he's acting instinctively about what he's looking at in front of him," Ashton told Melbourne radio 3AW.
"But certainly if a trolley had hit a police member and knocked him over and then this offender was on top of him, it could have had a tragic consequence. Luckily in this case, it didn't."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Somali-born attacker, from Melbourne's northwestern suburbs, had violated the nation's trust.
"The greatest threat of religious extremism in this country is the radical and dangerous ideology of extremist Islam," he said.
Morrison said Ali was one of about 400 people on a national ASIO terror watch list.
"Here in Australia we would be kidding ourselves if we did not call out the fact that the greatest threat of religious extremism in this country is the radical and dangerous ideology of extremist Islam," Morrison said.
"There is a special responsibility on religious leaders to protect their religious communities and to ensure dangerous teachings and ideologies do not take root here."
In a press conference on Saturday, Victoria Police confirmed Ali had been known to intelligence agencies for years, but he was not being actively monitored prior to the attack.
