An assailant is on the run and a teenager is dead after he was stabbed at a Brisbane CBD park and staggered away wounded before lying down, in an attack on Thursday night that left senior police stunned.
Detectives and forensic officers were scouring footage from the citys extensive city CCTV network, which tracked the pair from Queen Street Mall to Emma Miller Place before 8pm but gave no indication of what was about to unfold.
Detective Superintendent Tony Fleming told reporters the relationship between the 16-year-old victim and his alleged attacker, also believed to be a juvenile, was yet to be determined but the pair had met in the mall about 7.30pm.
He said footage already reviewed suggested a fight might have been about to occur but their behaviour would have in no way appeared confrontational to the many people around the area. The pair, with a group of others, then moved from the mall to the park off Roma Street where a conversation appeared to take place.
After this, the alleged offender stabbed the victim in the abdomen before calmly returning to part of the group and eventually walking in the direction of the Roma Street Parklands.
I suspect the young man who died had no idea this was going to unfold, Superintendent Fleming said.
A cleaning crew at one of two CBD crime scenes set up after the fatal stabbing.Credit:Matt Dennien
After staggering about 200 metres towards King George Square with a stomach wound, the teen laid beneath the Suncorp Plaza building and was found by a passer-by who called police. Nobody else appeared to have given help to the teenager, Superintendent Fleming said.
The teen was treated by paramedics before being rushed to the Royal Brisbane and Womens Hospital, where he died.
