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Updated March 19, 2026 — 5:57pm,first published 4:17pm
A teenage boy who allegedly stabbed a woman in a shopping centre on her way to work was on bail before he attacked the stranger.
A 25-year-old woman from Mount Waverley was stabbed while walking through the M-City Shopping Centre on Blackburn Road in Clayton on her way to work about 7.50am on Thursday.
A 16-year-old boy randomly attacked the woman, who was a stranger to him, police alleged, before a passerby helped her and called Triple Zero.
The woman was taken to The Alfred in a stable condition with upper body injuries, Ambulance Victoria confirmed.
Police arrested the boy soon after at a local medical centre.
They later charged him with intentionally causing injury, recklessly causing injury, assaulting someone with a weapon, possessing a controlled weapon, theft and committing an indictable offence while on bail.
The boy was remanded in custody to appear at a children’s court at a later date, police said.
In a separate incident on Thursday, a man was shot as he was walking in a park off Vantage Boulevard in Craigieburn in the city’s northern suburbs about 12.30pm, police said.
Paramedics treated the man, aged in his 20s, at the scene, before taking him to hospital with non-life-threatening lower body injuries.
“The exact circumstances surrounding the incident are being investigated,” police said in a statement.
Officers urged anyone with information about either the shooting or the stabbing to come forward.
The shooting is the second in Melbourne this week, after a drive-by outside Cafe Squared in Altona North in the city’s south-western suburbs on Tuesday. A group of men were forced to run for their lives during that incident.
The group was sitting outside the cafe about 11.30pm, drinking coffee, when the sound of gunfire was captured on CCTV, and the panicked men toppled a table and chairs to retreat inside.
One man was shot twice in the arm. He was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Statistics published on Thursday reveal crime in Victoria is at its highest rate since 2016, driven largely by theft – however, police analysis suggests some types of offending are beginning to stabilise after several years of sharp increases.
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