How a ‘youth offender phenomenon’ captured Melbourne and didn’t let go

A light breeze blew through the final moments of an overcast afternoon as Vaifoa Galuega watched her son’s best friend collapse.

Warning: this story contains graphic content that some readers may find upsetting.

Solomone Taufeulungaki, a six-foot-tall rugby player described by his teachers as a “protective teddy bear”, landed in the arms of his best friend Keidis, blood seeping into his school shirt from multiple stab wounds, outside Brimbank Shopping Centre on Tuesday, June 16.

Vaifoa ran to her son’s side and helped him lower Solomone to the ground.

Clothes began flying off bodies and onto the wound.

People returning to their cars with groceries, parents with children they had just picked up from school and teenagers leaving the library…