A machete ambush has left a Melbourne teenager with life-long injuries and forced his brother to flee into a lake after an online argument spilled onto the streets.<\/p>\n
Police believe the twins, aged 15, were lured to a park off Garretty Rd at Caroline Springs, in Melbourne’s west, on December 30 after a social media post. <\/p>\n
Senior Constable Daniel Rankin said the post suggested a one-on-one fight, but the brothers were instead quickly surrounded by 11 boys, one wielding what’s known as a “zombie killer” machete.<\/p>\n
Police arrived at the park within minutes and the group fled.<\/p>\n
Rankin said both boys were traumatised by the attack, with one suffering serious injuries after his head was stomped on. <\/p>\n
The teenager also received multiple lacerations to his arm and back. <\/p>\n
His brother was forced to jump into a nearby lake to get away from the attackers. <\/p>\n
“Within a minute, they were surrounded. It’s a cowardly attack against these two individuals, which has left them with lifelong injuries,” he told reporters on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
“He is going to have a significant recovery period. [It’s a] traumatic event, that’s going to leave a lasting impression on his life.”<\/p>\n
Investigators have released vision of a group of boys aged between 15 and 18 walking through Caroline Springs shortly before the attack.<\/p>\n
Police believed seven of the offenders, who were not known to the victims, arrived in the area in a black Ford Ranger ute with false number plates DRY685, which was left parked in nearby Boathouse Dr.<\/p>\n
CCTV captured eight alleged offenders leaving in the ute while three others were seen running towards Lorimer St about 5.45pm. <\/p>\n
State in the grip of knife crimes<\/p>\n
Victoria remained at the centre of Australian knife crime, with police seizing more than 15,000 knives, machetes and zombie knives in 2025.<\/p>\n
Incidents involving machetes tripled between 2021 and 2024, with young males responsible for two in five of the incidents, according to Crime Statistics Agency data.<\/p>\n
A machete amnesty, which ended on November 30, resulted in about 25,000 weapons being handed in during the programme.<\/p>\n
Les Twentyman Foundation chief executive Paul Burke told AAP early prevention was crucial to preventing youth crime.<\/p>\n
He hoped Victoria’s new Violence Reduction Unit, introduced following a spike in youth crime and taking a preventative, community-focused approach, would help address the ongoing problem.<\/p>\n
“Intervening at the earliest possible point for these young people can (break the behaviour),” he said.<\/p>\n
Burke said it was becoming increasingly common for young people to start arguments online and take them offline.<\/p>\n
“For young people, an online argument isn’t virtual. It’s personal, it’s emotional, and it’s very real,” he added.<\/p>\n
The stabbing occurred several suburbs away from where Dau Akueng, 15, and his 12-year-old friend, Chol Achiek, were stabbed to death in September.<\/p>\n
The incident reignited debate over youth gang crime in the city, after the pair were allegedly ambushed by a group while returning home from a local basketball game.<\/p>\n
Eight teenagers have since been charged over the crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A machete ambush has left a Melbourne teenager with life-long injuries and forced his brother to flee into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-221009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-australia","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}