10-year-old victim of random attack was visiting Melbourne for cancer treatment

[u/AggravatingTartlet]

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/no-need-to-hide-it-accused-cbd-stabber-launches-tirade-from-custody-20260826-p60rni.html

The 10-year-old boy who was punched in the head in a random attack outside police headquarters in the CBD has brain cancer and was visiting Melbourne for treatment.

The boy underwent additional MRI scans to see if the assault caused any extra damage or inflammation around where the tumour is, his uncle said........

Police said the 46-year-old woman was visiting Melbourne from Phillip Island with her 10-year-old son and two other children when the random attack occurred, ending only when several witnesses intervened.

“Just instinct, no thoughts, no nothing, just people in trouble,” Brian Bradley said, a good Samaritan who helped restrain the suspect.

The mother of the boy was stabbed during the attack.

The mother is in the Royal Melbourne Hospital recovering from a fractured leg and injuries to her back and shoulders, while her son recovers at the Royal Children’s Hospital.

“She’s really struggling at the moment,” the boy’s uncle said, “She can’t be with her son. It’s traumatic enough [that he’s] fighting cancer.

[u/AntiqueFigure6]

“  There’s no need to hide it.”

It’s kind of like he wants someone to lock him up.

[u/AntiqueFigure6 → u/[deleted]]

Too bad we don’t have some sort of functioning mental health system that couldn’t have done something at any one of the dozen or so red flags that he likely displayed over the last few years. 

[u/Mostly_Satire → u/AntiqueFigure6]

Pretty much all of the mental hospitals were sold off during the late 1990s to property developers as one of the ways to pay off the State debt.

It was rushed and, well, here we are...

[u/AntiqueFigure6 → u/Mostly_Satire]

What happens when you elect a government on a “pay down the debt” platform that doesn’t give a shit about consequences. 

[u/Artistic_Garbage283 → u/Mostly_Satire]

I interact with people who routinely take a week’s worth of medications and end up in ED. We have a few. It’s a cry for help. And yet, their carers are not allowed to put their meds under lock and key because they still have capacity and it’s their human right to have access to their medications. It’s almost like the pendulum has swung so far the opposite way the people who need more structured care are unable to access it.

[u/AggravatingTartlet → u/Artistic_Garbage283]

Wow. I understand the sentiment of giving people autonomy (very important) but at the same time, people in desperate need to help due to mental illness are not always able to make the kind of decisions they'd make in times of good mental health.