United in grief
No Australian is left untouched by Saturday’s tragic and horrific mass stabbing attack
All of Australia stands with the victims, the injured and the courageous caught up in the stabbing massacre in a Sydney shopping centre. The lone stabber claimed the lives of six – five women and one man – in senseless, horrific scenes amid people just going about their shopping on a Saturday in Bondi, one of the great lifestyle hubs of the country we all call home.
The people in the vicinity could have been any of us. The impact and heartbreak touches everyone.
In the thoughts of us all are those who tragically lost their lives for no other reason than they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. A first-time mother, Ash Good, by all accounts did everything she could to shield her nine-month-old baby from the attacker, Joel Cauchi, and his knife. It cost Ash her life.
Famed Australian ad man John Singleton – a regular Gold Coast visitor as the former co-owner of the Magic Millions – and his family are grieving daughter Dawn Singleton, killed as she walked through the Bondi Junction shopping mall. She was just 25 and due to marry her childhood sweetheart, a NSW police officer.
Amid these harrowing scenes, ordinary Aussies did us proud. Offduty lifeguard Andrew “Reidy” Reid – familiar to people as a star of the Bondi Rescue TV show – exited the safety of a locked shop he was in to help the injured, saying he saw one distressed woman and sprung into action: “She only had one person with her and I said I have got to go and help.”
Others are seen on CCTV running in support behind the heroic police Inspector Amy Scott as she raced after the knife-wielding attacker through the centre.
Inspector Scott showed the finest qualities of the country’s thin blue line in heading towards the danger, not away from it – and defusing it as she was advanced upon herself. She then performed CPR on the man she had just shot.
NSW Premier Chris Minns summed up the mood of the nation, as tributes flowed and flower arrangements showered the site of the horror scenes just a day earlier: “Whether you know the individuals or not, you are grieving today.”
The Bulletin extends sincere condolences to those directly impacted by this national tragedy.
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