Strathaird Primary School is located on Sherwood Road in Narre Warren South, an area of Melbourne’s outer southeast that is more well-known for its peaceful dead ends than for anything noteworthy. That all changed on Friday, June 12, when a routine school pick-up transformed into something that the local parents are still finding difficult to explain.
Two younger men are accused of attacking a 63-year-old Clyde North resident at Strathaird Reserve, the open area that faces the school. It occurred at 3:15 p.m., just as kids were leaving for the day. According to police, two men were standing over him when he was hit by a pole or a metal torch. He never got better. He passed away in the hospital six days later.
Violence that occurs in front of children rather than away from them is especially disturbing. While adults yelled for the attackers to stop, one witness told reporters that the children in the area were shaken as they watched a man who was unable to stand and appeared to be unconscious.
People remember this kind of information for a longer period of time than statistics ever do. David Wade, a man on the scene, described the victim as bleeding, confused, and requesting to throw up when he pulled over to offer assistance. Wade described it as the most popular way out of the school. The community seems to find this difficult to accept in part because of the timing.
A 22-year-old local from Narre Warren South and a 21-year-old man without a fixed address have been charged by police with recklessly causing serious injury. Both are still being held. Although the complete picture is still being revealed, investigators think the men were acquainted, which implies this wasn’t a random act. Homicide detectives have taken over since the victim’s death, and once the postmortem results are in, more charges appear likely.
The Department of Education acted rather swiftly, confirming that students who witnessed the incident had been offered wellbeing support in a statement. For its part, Strathaird Primary sent a letter home to families—something that, regrettably, schools have had to improve in recent years. By now, the script is well-known: counselors are brought in, assurances are given, and routines are restored to the best of their abilities. Schools rarely have a clear response to the question of whether that is sufficient for a child who witnessed an adult being beaten unconscious outside their classroom window.
Beyond its unfortunate location, Strathaird Primary has nothing to do with the violence. Only recently did the school receive a $10 million upgrade to its facilities, which included a kitchen garden program that had been gaining attention on social media for all the right reasons. The school opened in 2004 and has grown steadily ever since. It’s a government school with 755 students that is rather typical of the area and hardly ever makes the news outside of local newsletters. This story ends the way it does in part because of that ordinariness.
These moments are often quietly absorbed by communities such as Narre Warren South. There won’t be weeks of coverage or cycles of national indignation. However, the effects don’t stop when the news cycle ends for the parents who were at that gate and the kids who now associate pick-up time with something they shouldn’t have seen. The case is still open, and Crime Stoppers is still requesting information or video. A family lost a father as a result of an afternoon that was supposed to be ordinary—the kind that occurs five days a week at every school in the nation—becoming something completely different.
