An African teenager has been gunned down just metres from a police station in Melbourne’s inner-city in a suspected drive-by shooting.
Victoria Police said officers were “quick to respond” after hearing shots just after midnight in Saturday from their station near the intersection of Brunswick and King William Streets in Fitzroy., close to a large public housing development.
A male was found with life-threatening injuries and was treated by paramedics at the scene but was unable to be saved, and a crowd of people of African appearance were filmed nearby by 7News, while family members delivered flowers later in the morning.
The teenager is yet to be formally identified, but 9News reported he was 17 years old and friends with Sudanese teenager, Dau Akueng, who was allegedly murdered by machete-wielding gang members in Cobblebank in the city’s west in September.
Detective Acting Inspector Brett Meadow said the shots were believed to have been fired from a silver SUV, and said police were appealing for another male who was captured on CCTV walking with the victim at the time of the shooting to come forward.
“It was 12 o’clock in the morning … we’ve got two persons walking down the street. When shots are fired from a moving vehicle at those two persons it certainly appears to be targeted,” he said.
“At this stage it is still early in the investigation.”
No arrests have been made.
The police station was closed to the public at the time, and is one of 43 across Victoria, including 23 in Melbourne, that are either only open for 8 or 16 hours a day or no longer provide reception service at all despite crime being at record highs.
Mr Meadow said the two males walked past the station, and then doubled back before the shooting, but did not attempt to go inside.
The fatal shooting comes after two men were hacked and stabbed by a gang of Africans with machetes in Carlton on New Year’s Eve, and four 15-year-old males were injured in two separate machete attacks in Caroline Springs and Pakenham on Tuesday and Thursday .
Last last year Sudanese convicted criminal Kwar Ater was allegedly killed in a drive-by shooting in Melbourne’s CBD, and two other African men have been charged with his murder.
Header image: Left, a man police are asking to come forward (Victoria Police). Right, a crowd gathered at the scene after the shooting (7News).
