Man on stabbing spree kills six people in Sydney mall
The 40-year-old was stopped in the knifing attack at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction
A man stabbed six people to death at a busy Sydney shopping centre on Saturday before he was fatally shot, police said, with hundreds fleeing the chaotic scene, many weeping as they carried their children. At least eight people, including a 9-month-old, were injured.
The 40-year-old was stopped in the knifing attack at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction, which is in the city’s eastern suburbs, when a police inspector shot him after he turned and raised a knife, New South Wales Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke told reporters.
“They just said run, run, run — someone’s been stabbed,” one witness told ABC TV in Australia. “(The attacker) was walking really calmly like he was having an ice cream in a park. And then he went up the escalators ... and probably within about a minute we heard three gunshots.”
Six of the victims — five women and a man — and the suspect died. Commissioner Karen Webb said the eight injured people were being treated at hospitals.
The baby was in surgery, but it was too early to know the condition, she said.
“We are confident that there is no ongoing risk, and we are dealing with one person who is now deceased,” Webb said in a later briefing.
She added: “It’s not a terrorism incident.” She said police wouldn’t identify the man yet and were still working to determine his motivation.
Cooke said a ”lengthy and precise” investigation was just beginning.
Some witnesses expressed shock and disbelief at the unexpected eruption of violence. Australia’s enactment of stringent gun laws came in response to a tragic event in 1996, when a gunman took the lives of 35 people and injured 23 others during a devastating incident in Tasmania.
Cooke said the police inspector, a senior officer, was alone when she confronted the suspect and engaged him soon after her arrival on the scene, “saving a range of people’s lives.”
The officer “showed enormous courage and bravery,” Webb said.
“If she didn’t shoot, he would have kept going, and I don’t know how many more he would have done,” another witness told 7News, speaking of the police inspector.
Video showed many ambulances and police cars around the shopping centre, and people streaming out, many with children in their arms. Paramedics were treating patients at the scene.
Roi Huberman, a sound engineer at ABC TV in Australia, told the network that he sheltered in a store during the incident.
King Charles III ‘horrified’
According to a report by Agence France-Presse, Britain’s King Charles III said on Saturday that he and his wife Queen Camilla were “horrified” by “senseless” stabbings at the shopping centre. “My wife and I were utterly shocked and horrified to hear of the tragic stabbing incident in Bondi,” Charles said in a statement released by Buckingham Palace.
“Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of those who have been so brutally killed during such a senseless attack.
“While details of these shocking circumstances are still emerging, our thoughts are also with those who were involved in the response, and we give thanks for the bravery of the first responders and emergency services,” he added.
King Charles III is the monarch of Australia, which is part of Britain’s Commonwealth.
Earlier, his son and heir to the throne Prince William and his wife Catherine said they were “shocked and saddened” by the stabbings.
“Our thoughts are with all those affected, including the loved ones of those lost and the heroic emergency responders who risked their own lives to save others. W & C,” the Prince and Princess of Wales said in a post on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.
Both Charles, 75, and Catherine, 42, have taken a back seat from frontline royal duties as they receive treatment for cancer.
Catherine announced last month that she was undergoing treatment after cancer was discovered following abdominal surgery.
Her shock disclosure came after Charles revealed that he was being treated for an unspecified cancer detected after he had surgery for a benign prostate condition.