Teen boy dead after stabbings near Sydney school
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder after the fatal stabbing of an 18-year-old man at Doonside on Friday, in what police believe may be an escalation of the area’s so-called postcode gang war.
Police & Courts
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A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder after the fatal stabbing of an 18-year-old man at Doonside on Friday, with police investigating links between those involved and the area’s so-called postcode gang wars.
The 16-year-old was been refused bail and will appear at a children’s court on Saturday morning.
He was arrested at Doonside, near the alleged site of the stabbing on Power St, and taken to Mount Druitt Police Station for questioning.
The 18-year-old man and a 19-year-old companion, who were both stabbed in the incident about 3.40pm, made their way to Blacktown Police Station, where the former died.
The 19-year-old is in a serious but stable condition in Westmead Hospital.
On Saturday morning officers from the Riot Squad in tactical gear swept the scene on Power St. At one point officers stopped to bag a glove found in the footpath as evidence.
Several then spent time combing the grounds inside the school before moving to nearby streets where residents reported teens running through their yards on Friday afternoon.
Locals told The Saturday Telegraph said children as young as five had witnessed the teen getting stabbed while he was getting on the bus at the same time as primary school students.
Attention is now turning to the impact children who watched what is now alleged to be an escalation in Sydney’s post-code wars.
The traumatic scenes unfolded after students were leaving school for the last day before break.
Residents near the Crawford Public School bus stop on Saturday morning described “chaotic scenes” of the night before.
“There were helicopters, two of them,” said one neighbour, who has lived in the street for 40 years. “It felt like they were hovering around until midnight.”
Sections of the police force expressed frustration with the prevalence of street gang violence in western Sydney in the wake of the stabbing.
One senior source described how officers were throwing “every resource possible” to quell the violence.
The gangs, specifically one believed to be at the centre of Friday’s tragedy, have been terrorising this part of western Sydney for years.
In 2020 a group of teens claiming to be aligned to 67 taunted 15-year-old Jason Galleghan about a local rivalry before bashing him to death on video.
That took place just minutes away from where the teen was stabbed in Doonside on Friday.
A year later the NRL was forced to speak to several players after they were seen throwing up hand gestures referencing the gang when scoring a try.
Police were already on alert over tensions in the so-called “postcode war” in the area, when the brazen knife fight allegedly broke out between two rival teen gangs.
A major police hunt was under way on Friday night after tensions between Mt Druitt’s RFA and Doonside’s 67 gangs boiled over on a public bus.
It’s understood an altercation erupted between as many as seven people on the bus before it stopped outside Crawford Public School and spilt onto Power St.
Witnesses reported hearing one person say: “Are you 67 yeah?”, before one teen was stabbed.
Teen boys were then seen running from the scene, throwing gang signs.
A witness said: “We were waiting for the bus and someone ran down in hysterics saying: ‘Call police, my husband has been stabbed”.
“I saw kids hanging around the bus stop outside the school.”
Police sources said that after being stabbed, the teens were dropped off, bleeding from serious injuries, at the police station by one of their mothers.
Kildare Rd was closed off to the public, as the boy lay bleeding on the footpath. Critical care paramedics rushed to try and save the boy but he could not be saved.
Detectives declared the bus and the street a crime scene, as well as Blacktown Police Station.
Officers were already on alert after intelligence revealed tensions between the two gangs were “heating up”.
As man as five people were believed to be on the run from police on Friday night.
Police were planning to doorknock known members last night and check for any breaches of bail conditions as they hunted for the culprits.
In response to the rising tension, police on Friday had been involved in proactive operations in the Mt Druitt area, locking down trains after reports of potential violence. They then rushed to neighbouring Doonside.
RFA – Ready for Anything – members hail from Mt Druitt, while 67 originated in Doonside and stands for postcode 2767.
The “67” gang share their name with a group of well-known Sydney drill rappers popularised by Hooligan Hefs and Hooligan Skinny, who also hail from Doonside. The two groups were involved in violence at the 2022 Easter Show and tensions have been “bubbling along” since.
Seventeen-year-old Uati “Pele” Faletolu, who was stabbed to death at the Easter Show, was from Doonside, postcode 2767, and his friends told police they believe the alleged attackers were from the Mt Druitt area – postcode 2770.
Members of the RFA gang were posting about the death on social media on Friday evening.
Distraught friends of the dead teen rushed to the crime scene site last night, many expressing anger on social media.
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