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A man has been arrested after allegedly punching a 10-year-old boy and repeatedly stabbing his mother with a pair of scissors in Melbourne’s CBD.
Police said the random attack outside Victoria Police’s headquarters on Tuesday afternoon only ended when several passers-by intervened.
Superintendent Zorka Dunstan said the woman’s two other children witnessed the violent assault. The family had been visiting the city from Phillip Island.
“The man was walking south, and as he passed them, he randomly punched the 10-year-old then kept walking. He then turned around, grabbed mother in a headlock and started to stab her repeatedly with a pair of scissors,” Dunstan said.
Dunstan said she personally witnessed the incident from her office upstairs. Police were horrified by the attack, and grateful that three people came to the family’s aid before police arrived to arrest the attacker.
“We had a citizen immediately intervene, who jumped onto him and just pulled him off the mum, and then the other two added assistance by grabbing him as well,” she said.
“Without the intervention, it could have been a lot worse, so we are so grateful for their assistance.”
The 10-year-old is recovering at The Royal Children’s Hospital, while his 30-year-old mother is at the nearby Royal Melbourne Hospital with injuries to her back and shoulders. “She was in fairly good spirits given the circumstances,” Dunstan said.
Dunstan said the incident had also traumatised the family. “One of the boys was an 11-year-old, he was crying, I gave him a hug,” she said.
The 27-year-old man from Sunshine West will be interviewed by police.
Dunstan said while the attack was random, the man was known to police in Victoria, NSW and Western Australia.
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