A homeless man who pushed a shopping trolley into the Melbourne knife attacker has seen his actions criticised by a top police officer.
Mohamed Khalif went on a bloody rampage last Friday, crashing his Holden Rodeo on Bourke St before setting it on fire. He then took out a knife and attacked innocent bystanders before being shot by police and later dying in hospital.
Forty-six-year-old Michael Rogers' actions with his trolley played a role in bringing Khalif's attack to an end - so much so that he's now been given the nickname 'Trolley Man' and more than $130,000 through a GoFundMe campaign.
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But a senior Victoria Police staffer was less impressed with his efforts, telling Melbourne radio station 3AW what he did could easily have gone wrong.
"I don't like to criticise people in that situation; he's acting instinctively about what he's looking at in front of him," police chief Graham 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."
One man, restaurant owner Sisto Malaspina, was killed in the attack, while two other men were injured.
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