MELBOURNE, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Four teenagers have been charged with murder over a fatal stabbing at an outer-Melbourne train station on Friday amid a recent string of knife and youth crime across the state of Victoria.
A 22-year-old man died at Mernda Railway Station, 27 km north of central Melbourne, after he was allegedly stabbed while helping a 14-year-old boy who was being assaulted on Friday evening.
The police force in Victoria said in a statement on Monday that four teenagers aged 16-18 were arrested and have been charged with murder over the attack.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Nigel L'Estrange from the Victoria Police Homicide Squad said that the victim, who was on his way home from working as a security guard, had escorted the 14-year-old away from the train station, but was followed and attacked by the group.
"Those four offenders followed both of them and then, in what could only be described as a savage attack, assaulted the 22-year-old male physically using both fists, kicking, and they used edged weapons," he said.
"This is just a tragic situation where our victim here is just a good Samaritan who was trying to do the right thing."
In response to the attack, the Victorian state government on Sunday announced it would deploy the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), an early intervention initiative composed of police, youth organizations and schools that aims to identify potential young offenders, to Mernda.
The VRU was established by the state government in November 2025 to address the root causes of youth offending amid a rise in violent youth crime across the state.
In December, the state parliament passed adult time for violent crime laws, under which children aged 14 and over who are found guilty of violent offenses such as aggravated burglary and intentionally causing injury will face maximum sentences of life imprisonment.
That followed the government's move earlier in 2025 to ban the sale and possession of machetes following a brawl at a Melbourne shopping center on May 25 that involved armed members of rival youth gangs.
Despite the ban, two people were hospitalized following a machete attack in central Melbourne in the early hours of Monday morning.
Police said that a man and woman in their 20s were attacked in the central business district around 2:40 a.m. on Monday.
The alleged perpetrator, a 25-year-old man, was arrested and has been charged with intentionally causing injury.
According to the latest data from Victoria's Crime Statistics Agency, there were 483,313 criminal incidents recorded in the state in the 12 months to September 2025, up 12.3 percent from 430,533 incidents in the preceding 12 months.
Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Bob Hill said when the data was released in December that repeat offenders accounted for about 25 percent of the state's crime and that authorities were particularly concerned about repeat offenders in the 12-17 age bracket.
He said that youth offenders were driving an increase in aggravated burglaries, home invasions and armed robberies.
Hill said that police officers seized more than 16,000 edged weapons in 2025. ■
