What we know
- Three people - a young child and a man and a woman in their 30s - are dead
- Up 15 people are in hospital, including five in a critical condition
- Police say the incident is not terror-related
- The suspect, a 26-year-old man, was known to police and had allegedly stabbed his brother earlier in the day
- Police say he drove into the crowd deliberately
- The suspect has been shot and is in hospital with non-life threatening injuries
A young child is among the three people killed when a car ploughed through a crowd in Melbourne's CBD, in what Victoria's premier has described as an "evil, criminal act".
- Video: The moment car mounts footpath in Melbourne rampage
- Video: Car does burnouts before hitting pedestrians in Melbourne
Two others aged in their 30s, a man and a woman, were also killed. Police say the three were killed at separate locations and did not appear to be related to each other.
Up to 15 people were injured in the incident, including five people in a critical condition. Four children were being treated at Royal Children’s Hospital and one of those children was in a critical condition.
The suspect allegedly stabbed his brother in the Melbourne suburb of Windsor earlier in the day, leaving him in a critical condition.
Police say following the Windsor stabbing, the 26-year-old suspect took a woman who is known to him hostage in his car, but she managed to escape.
Police cars gave chase but called off the pursuit before he made it into the CBD.
He then did a number of burnouts at a main intersection before allegedly driving his car into crowds on Bourke St.
The suspect was arrested when police rammed into his car and shot him. He is being treated in hospital for non-life threatening injuries and they are not seeking anybody else.
Police say the man has no terror group affiliations but does have a history of family violence and mental health issues.
Child killed, others injured
Police have confirmed one child was among the three dead. Four others were in hospital, including a three-month-old who was being operated on and a two-year-old in intensive care.
Photos and footage from the scene showed a crumpled pram on the car's bonnet.
Witnesses reported that the young child who was in the pram was lying on the sidewalk before being picked up by police.
Police said they gave emergency treatment to an infant at the scene and took the child to hospital by police car where they remain in a critical condition.
People 'were flying like skittles'
A witness told ABC News the man was driving in a "really determined fashion", with no hesitation before ploughing into the crowd.
"He was just collecting people as he was going along they were just flying like skittles basically."
One man told Sky News that he had seen multiple people with injuries in the mall.
"There was just a lot of blood, just a hell of a lot of blood," he said.
An eyewitness told Fairfax that she saw three people get hit by a maroon car on a pedestrian-only stretch of Bourke Street Mall in the CBD.
"People were running out of the way, they were going very very fast. I saw him hit a few people. I saw bodies flying into the air," she said.
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews said in a media conference Victorians were "stronger than this evil criminal act".
"Our hearts are breaking this afternoon that a number of people have died. Others remain in a critical condition - very, very seriously ill, gravely ill - in hospitals around our city.
"But we are stronger than this. Through our response, through the work of our emergency services [and] the instinctive way in which Victorians have reached out to support each other, we can be confident that we are stronger than this evil criminal act."
Newshub.
