‘Heroes in the supermarket’
The actions of bystanders to detain a man on a stabbing rampage inside a Dunedin supermarket yesterday have been hailed by police as ‘‘nothing short of heroic’’.
At a press conference southern district commander Superintendent Paul Basham confirmed four people had suffered critical injuries and were being treated in Dunedin Hospital. Police were seeking to establish the identity of the victims and contact their next-ofkin, he said.
Basham described viewing the security footage of the bloody scene as ‘‘traumatic’’ and said the alleged offender was also receiving medical attention for minor injuries. He was yet to be formally spoken to or charged but Basham expected he would be taken to the police station and be charged before appearing in court in Dunedin this morning.
Asked what charges the man was likely to face, Basham replied: ‘‘It is a serious stabbing, so at a minimum it is wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. God forbid the status of those victims deteriorates overnight and then we will be looking at something else. But let’s hope that is not the case.’’
Witnesses heard screaming and saw a man brandishing two knives during the attack. The incident, which sparked a large armed police response, happened at Countdown in Cumberland St about 2.30pm. Two staff members and two customers are among the injured.
It is believed a fifth injured person is the alleged offender. The Southern DHB confirmed three patients were admitted to the intensive care unit and one to a general ward. One patient was being treated in the emergency department.
One witness at the supermarket told Stuff: ‘‘It just sounded like someone fell over and then [the] screaming got louder and louder. We walked past the aisle and we heard someone say, ‘he has got a knife’, so we just kept moving forward.’’
Asked what the person looked like, the man said: ‘‘Curly hair, quite a messy little fellow.’’ It is understood a woman had stab wounds to her hands, while another person had to be revived inside the supermarket.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told media there was nothing at this stage to suggest it was a domestic terror event.
The Otago Daily Times reported members of the public pinned down the offender but he wrestled his way free before police arrived. A witness told the ODT a man was arrested and was walked to the Dunedin Central Police Station, next door to the supermarket, covered in blood.
RNZ reported a witness saying the attacker was carrying two knives. A Stuff reporter at the scene said the incident appeared to have unfolded in a pharmacy within the supermarket, where items were strewn across an aisle. ‘‘There are four or five police staff working inside a cordon in that area, including forensics and a photographer.’’
Pharmacy workers looked shaken and hugged each other when they emerged from the building among Countdown staff soon after the incident, one saying only that it was ‘‘scary’’. Countdown’s managing director, Spencer Sonn, said the company was ‘‘shocked and devastated’’ by the events. The company’s priority was ‘‘our injured team members and caring for our wider team in the wake of this extremely traumatic event’’. ‘‘We are deeply upset that customers who tried to help our team members were also injured,’’ Sonn said.
‘‘We have been concerned about escalating violence towards our team ... over the last year.’’
The store would remain closed for at least the next two days, he said. Basham said police were still working to understand the motivations for the stabbing ‘‘however, on the face of what we currently know, we believe this was a random attack’’.
He said the incident was ‘‘fastmoving and extremely traumatic’’ for everyone at the supermarket. ‘‘The victims who were injured, those present who tried to intervene and those who fled to a place of safety.’’
In a Facebook post, a Wellington woman on her first visit to Dunedin described the chilling event. The woman said her family was a few aisles away from the attack when she heard screaming. ‘‘A lady was freaking out telling everyone to run.’’
The woman said she ran outside along with everyone else and saw the alleged perpetrator covered in blood.
It ‘‘sounded like someone fell over, and then [the] screaming got louder and louder’’, says witness