Australian community tries to heal after mall stabbing
SYDNEY — On a perfect mid-autumn day, the scene at an upscale suburban mall in Sydney was as humdrum as it was idyllic: mothers pushing strollers, gaggles of teenagers being young, families whiling away the weekend afternoon.
But in a matter of minutes Saturday, the sprawling, multistory mall instead became a site of panic, chaos and terror. Only 1 mile from the famous Bondi Beach in eastern Sydney, a knife-wielding attacker stabbed nearly 20 people, including a 9-month-old girl. Six of the victims, including the girl’s mother, died, and about a dozen others were being treated at hospitals. The attacker — whose motives remain unclear — was shot and killed by a police officer.
It was one of the deadliest mass killings in Australia in recent decades and has left many in shock, questioning how a tragedy of this magnitude could occur in a country known for its relative safety.
People in the surrounding community said the violence was all the more unsettling because the mall was such a hub of life that everyone had just been to or was about to visit. Familiar backdrops — the Lego store, a boba stand, clothing shops — had become crime scenes and parts of traumatic memories.
“These things don’t happen in Australia,” said Kristie Spong, 54, who had been to the mall with her daughter a few days earlier and returned Sunday to lay flowers, her makeup running down her face through tears. “We just think we’re a blessed country because we have good gun control.”
Police Sunday were combing through a crime scene spanning several floors of the Westfield Bondi Junction mall, which remained cordoned off. They were also going through footage from CCTV cameras and interviewing hundreds of witnesses to Saturday’s attack, trying to piece together the chronology of a rampage that punctured a sense of security
in this wealthy suburb of Australia’s largest city.
Portraits of the victims, all but one of whom were women, began to emerge. They included a first-time mother, a security guard who tried to stop the attacker and a young fashion employee, according to statements from those who knew them.
Police officials identified the attacker as Joel Cauchi, 40, who arrived in the Sydney area a month ago from Queensland, in the country’s northeast.
Why the man, who police said had a history of mental illness, began terrorizing shoppers Saturday afternoon, moving through the upper floors of the mall dressed in a rugby jersey and stabbing people with a long knife, remained unclear.
“There is still to this point nothing we have received that would suggest this was driven by any particular motivation, ideology or otherwise,”
Anthony Cooke, assistant police commissioner for New South Wales, the state that includes Sydney, said at a news briefing Sunday morning.
Asked if the attacker appeared to single out women, Karen Webb, the state’s police commissioner, said that would be an “obvious” line of inquiry for police.
“I think anyone seeing that footage can see that for themselves,” she said, referring to his victims.
Hedy Davant, 71, who has lived a couple of blocks from the mall for three decades and visited the makeshift memorial Sunday, said the pattern seemed apparent to her.
“It’s so cowardly,” she said. “He avoided the men and went for the women and children.”
Huma Hussainy, 33, said she stepped out of the Lululemon store on the fourth floor after hearing screaming Saturday and made eye contact with the attacker.
“His face was so angry, and his knife was ready — the way he was holding the knife,” she said. She dashed back inside to try to find a place to hide.
The rampage ultimately came to an end at the swift actions of a woman: Amy Scott, a police inspector whom authorities repeatedly praised as having averted what could have been a much larger tragedy by shooting the attacker dead.
Cauchi had had a number of interactions with police in Queensland because of his illness, authorities said, but he had never been arrested. Authorities did not describe what those problems were.
His family, who was not in regular communication with him, contacted police when they saw TV broadcasts of the attack and recognized him, according to police. In a statement, his family called his actions “truly horrific,” saying they were still trying to comprehend what happened.