Worker who saw man with hunting knife day before alleged murder says she will now report it

Razia Rani, who works at City Mart near Queen Victoria Market, said she did not notice the weapon until she was in her glass booth after retrieving batteries from a back shelf. She described it as “a horrible knife, big knife” with a menacing curved blade, and said she took a step back, terrified. She thought about calling the police, but questioned what that would do, saying thieves and people making threats often came back anyway and the man had barely spoken to her.

The 51-year-old Roberto Urbano has been charged with murder and intentionally causing serious injury over the death of Feng, 47, and faced court on Monday. Police believe an altercation broke out when Feng and a fellow delivery rider who was injured confronted a man they caught tampering with their bikes.

Frightening encounters like this might be commonplace in this pocket of businesses. Rani gestured to a neighbouring liquor store, saying there is an incident “every week”. For example, she said, someone comes and takes the booze and runs away, and sometimes workers chase them and sometimes they just ignore it. She said they faced difficulty finding night staff because the shop is 24/7: “We are begging staff to … come work.”

Rani said the man did not verbally threaten her but she was reminded it is her duty to inform, whether anyone was arrested or not.

Detectives doorknocked businesses in A’Beckett Street and surrounds on Monday, as floral tributes and candles were left for Feng outside a hot pot restaurant on Frederick Way, where he lay dying on Friday night. Delivery riders for HungryPanda, the service Feng was working for at the time of the alleged attack, filtered in and out of the restaurant on Monday, collecting meals.

Rider Karan Gaddam said local rough sleepers would sometimes steal meals from unattended bags while riders went inside restaurants. Another rider, Ming Ku, said he picks up from the area often: “It’s not safe,” he said, “You see someone maybe push the bike [over] and you can’t do anything.”

Some local workers say the area is volatile because of a high concentration of people with untreated mental health and substance abuse issues. One cafe worker, Alex, who asked his surname not be published for privacy reasons, said more police would be welcome. Jo Stafford, police assistant commissioner for the north-west metro region, said at a press conference on Monday that policing could not solve the problem alone.

The Salvation Army’s Major Brendan Nottle said an increasing number of vulnerable people in the city were arming themselves with knives and other weapons for protection in lieu of that support. Melbourne Lord Mayor Nick Reece repeatedly asked whether it was time to “bring back the asylums”, but later said he was not necessarily calling for asylums to return, rather wanting a community conversation and expert advice on how to tackle a rise in violence involving people experiencing acute mental illness.