A young tradie has been viciously stabbed in a savage assault by a gang of youths in Melbourne, where youth crime is up almost 17%.
Tomas Petzler, 22, who recently moved to Melbourne from the small town of Bowen in Queensland, was attacked at about 3pm on Tuesday in the multicultural Melbourne suburb of Werribee when he accidently bumped into a teenage boy at the train station.
A nearby group of youths then allegedly set upon Mr Petzler, punching, kicking and stabbing him until stunned onlookers came to his aid. Police have not released descriptions of the attackers, and no arrests have been made.
“It was really quick, like 30 seconds. I was walking past them, and I accidentally bumped into one of them, and then it all started from there. There were at least 10 of them,” Mr Petzler told the Herald Sun.
“I curled up into a ball and they were all just kicking me and punching me, and there were people trying to stop it and yelling and trying to break it up.”
Only later did Mr Petzler realise he had been stabbed. The knife penetrated his chest, puncturing his lung, and he was also stabbed twice in the back, with doctors noting Mr Petzler was lucky not to be paralysed.
A second youth, believed to be one of the offenders involved, is believed to to be have been accidently stabbed in the assault on Mr Petzler, and was taken to the Royal Children’s Hospital where he was interviewed by police.
A GoFundMe has been set up to raise funds for Mr Petzler’s recovery.
The brutal attack comes after 16-year-old Pasawm Lyhym was fatally stabbed outside Sunshine Station in May last year by a group of youths. 18-year-old Ngor Dao was one of four males arrested and the only one who can be legally named, while another belongs to a family described as an “immigration success”.
That killing follows the callous March 2022 murder of Declan Cutler, 16, who was stabbed over a hundred times by a group of African gang members after leaving a party in the city’s north.
According to data released this week from the Crime Statistics Agency, criminal incidents in Victoria are at their “highest level on record”, with youth crime and domestic violence at 15-year highs.
As Victoria Police reported in response to the data: “There were 578,762 criminal offences recorded in Victoria in the twelve months to September 2024 – an increase of 68,536 offences or 13.4%”.
Theft from motor vehicles reached record highs and crimes committed by children increased 16.9% to their highest levels since 2009. The amount of family violence incidents also “surpassed 100,000 for the first time in history”.
Header image: Tomas Petzler (GoFundMe)
