Acceleration in extreme public violence linked to gang activity

Police are concerned about an escalation in street gang violence, with multiple suspected gang homicides carried out in public places such as shopping centres and public transport hubs.

Melbourne street and youth gangs are suspected of being involved in 11 homicides in the past two years.

The numbers indicate an acceleration in extreme public violence linked to gang activity since October 2022.

Most of the suspected gang homicides since March 2022 were in public places such as shopping centres, public transport hubs and a crowded beach park.

Almost all involved multiple attackers using guns, knives or both.

Youth gangs and street gangs are suspected of being linked to 11 homicides in the past two years. Picture: Ian Currie

Last year there were five killings with suspected gang links.

Gangs investigators have been involved in an inquiry into the brutal double murder of 29-year-old Atem Atem and his friend Ayuel Akuei, 22, who were shot and stabbed in a home invasion at Wyndham Vale last February.

Atem Atem was killed in Wyndham Vale.

Ayuel Akuei was killed in Wyndham Vale.

Nine people were arrested over that ambush in a series of raids across Melbourne but no charges were laid.

In June, 14-year-old Braybrook College student Ethan Hoac was hit by a car then stabbed to death.

Three teenagers were charged with murder over his killing, which happened just after he left St Albans railway station.

Ethan Hoac was struck by a car and stabbed to death in St Albans.

In September, 21-year-old tradie Adam Robinson had been watching a football final with family before he was chased and stabbed to death in Butler Grove, Wyndham Vale.

Police are still searching for the culprits.

Adam Robinson was fatally stabbed in Wyndham Vale.

Yiel Gatluak, 19, was found dead on New Year’s Eve on a dirt road on the outskirts of Alice Springs after suffering head and abdominal injuries.

Koang Wuordol, who allegedly had links to Melbourne’s Next Gen Shooters gang, has been extradited from Victoria to the Territory over the killing and is one of three people charged.

Yiel Gatluak was found dead on the outskirts of Alice Springs.

The year before, in 2022, there were six homicides with suspected gang links.

Declan Cutler was stabbed more than 50 times in what was described as a frenzied ­attack as he left a house party in Reservoir.

The 16-year-old, who had no gang affiliations, was alone when eight teens who had driven across town from the western suburbs set upon him.

Declan Cutler was stabbed more than 50 times in Reservoir.

Some of Declan’s attackers were members of a gang known as the 9ers.

Promising basketballer Alier Riak, 23, died in the same month after being stabbed by multiple attackers outside a Bourke St club where he had been celebrating his birthday.

Alier Riak was stabbed outside a Bourke St club.

A court heard allegations the clash was linked to members of the Stain Gang.

A month later, Victorian man Ngor Bol, 25, was stabbed to death on Adelaide’s North Terrace in a street fight that broke out after gang members allegedly flew to South Australia from Melbourne and Sydney.

Two Victorian males, aged 17 and 21, have been charged over that killing, which police say was preceded by friction between the 051 and KBS outfits.

Ngor Bol was stabbed to death in Adelaide. Picture: 7 NEWS

Nine youths were charged by police investigating the October 2022 murder in a Heidelberg West front yard of Khalid Mahat, 25.

He was stabbed 10 times in the chest and head at a property in North Crescent, allegedly by up to 10 teenagers who had also kidnapped one of his mates.

Khalid Mahat was stabbed to death in Heidelberg West.

In the same month, Cranbourne man Kose Kose was stabbed to death in the CBD as rival groups of men brawled in Bourke St.

Two men, aged 20 and 23, were arrested by officers of the Victoria Police gang crime squad.

Kose Kose was stabbed to death in the CBD.

Two months later, Hashim Mohamed, 18, of Tarneit, was fatally knifed on St Kilda foreshore in what police believed was a gang attack.

Police charged six youths with his death, including five aged between 15 and 17 and one aged 18.

Hashim Mohamed was killed in St Kilda.

The Herald Sun has been told the force’s own intelligence states there were 20 killings linked to street gangs in the past five years.

Former deputy commissioner Rick Nugent said in a 2022 youth gang strategy that there had been four murders linked to youth gangs in the 12 months to the middle of that year

Victoria Police has for three years run an operation called Alliance across the state to try to control youth gangs.

The latest Alliance’s figures say there are 607 known youth gang members in Victoria.

Police say overall youth crime is down but that young offenders are heavily over-represented in “serious and violent crimes against the person”.

And there is concern some are developing into hardened career criminals under the ­influence of older offenders.

Sources say there are increasing numbers of current and former street gang members in the state’s adult system.

Many of them had spent time in the juvenile justice system in earlier years.

There have been a number of other high-profile killings linked to gang activity in the past five years.

Solomone Taufeulungaki, 15, was fatally stabbed in the heart after being set upon by 10 youths with knives at Brimbank Shopping Centre, Deer Park in June 2020.

Solomone Taufeulungaki was killed in Deer Park.

Aguer Akech, 17, whose family said he had no involvement with gangs, was fatally assaulted at Keilor Plains railway station in December 2019.

Detectives from the anti-gangs Echo task force later charged a 15-year-old boy with murder.

In September 2019, Maaka Hakiwai was fatally stabbed at a Kings Park bus stop while being robbed of a baseball cap.

Maaka Hakiwai was fatally stabbed.

Allegations later emerged that his accused killer was a gang member and that witnesses in the killing had been intimidated.

Youth gang members were scrutinised by homicide squad detectives over a horrific quadruple fatal road accident at Truganina in September 2021.

The victims had been in a Ford, which was surrounded by other vehicles then attacked by baseball bat-wielding thugs near Tarneit shopping centre.

The teens in the Ford were chased at high speed before a horrific collision with a truck in Dohertys Rd.

Friends said aspiring personal trainer Thomas Tran had quit the gang life in the period before he was stabbed to death in Oakleigh’s Eaton Mall.

Thomas Tran was killed in Oakleigh.

The 20-year-old from Springvale died in a brutal clash between groups of young men in June 2020.