A 14-year-old boy who police allege is a known gang member has been arrested over the near fatal abduction of a Melbourne student as he walked home from school.
The boy was arrested after a 14-year-old student from Glen Eira college was forced into a car and left seriously injured in Glen Huntly on Monday afternoon.
Insp Scott Dwyer said police allege he was believed to be the main offender, and flagged more arrests in the coming hours.
“We have identified all those persons we believe responsible for that attack and their arrests are imminent,” he told reporters on Thursday.
“I would anticipate in the hours that follow and the days that follow there will be further arrests that will give us some comfort that the incidents we saw have been addressed.”
About 10 minutes before the attack, it is alleged two people armed with machetes robbed four teenagers of their mobile phones and other personal belongings. Detectives are yet to confirm whether the armed robbery is linked.
Dwyer said earlier this week that it was concerning other alleged victims had not told their parents, school or police about other incidents until after the 14-year-old boy’s robbery was revealed.
He said on Thursday that concerns schools were being targeted were “unfounded”. This comes as other schools in Melbourne’s south-east warned students to exercise caution when travelling to and from campus.
“I want to reassure our community, especially for the mums and dads, the kids … they are safe to walk to school,” he said.
Dwyer said the number of Victorian youth offenders aged 10 to 17 is rising, with police monitoring 598 youth gang members across 44 gangs.
Of those, 444 have been arrested more than 1,600 times during the past 12 months.
But Dwyer said that there were almost 150 fewer gang members than three years ago and youth crime in general had fallen below pre-Covid levels, while robberies were also down 37%.
Extra patrols have been rolled out in the Glen Eira and Bayside areas, near where the incident happened.
Uniformed and mounted branch officers are focusing on areas around schools but Dwyer urged the public not to be alarmed.
“Just because you see police in key locations doesn’t mean that that is a dangerous area,” he said.
“We are there to … deter crime as much as we are to investigate it.”
The investigation remains ongoing and anyone with information has been urged to contact police.
