Six stabbed to death at Sydney mall, suspect killed
SYDNEY — Police have identified the assailant who stabbed six people to death at a busy Sydney shopping centre before he was fatally shot by a police officer.
New South Wales Police said that Joel Cauchi, 40, was responsible for the Saturday afternoon attack at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction, in the city’s eastern suburbs and not far from the world-famous Bondi Beach.
NSW Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke told reporters at a media conference today that Cauchi suffered from yet unspecified mental health issues and police investigators weren’t treating the attack as terrorism-related.
“We are continuing to work through the profiling of the offender but very clearly to us at this stage it would appear that this is related to the mental health of the individual involved,” Cooke said.
“There is still, to this point… no information we have received, no evidence we have recovered, no intelligence that we have gathered that would suggest that this was driven by any particular motivation — ideology or otherwise,” he said.
The attack at the shopping centre, one of the country’s busiest and which was a hub of activity on a particularly warm fall afternoon, began around 3:10 p.m. and police were swiftly called.
Six people — five women and one man, aged between 20 and 55 — were killed in the attack and 12 others remain in hospital, including a nine-month-old child, whose mother died during the attack.
Two of the six victims were from overseas and have no family in Australia, Cooke said.
Video footage shared online appears to show many people fleeing as a knife-wielding Cauchi walked through the shopping center and lunging at people.
Other footage shows a man confronting the attacker on an escalator in the shopping centre by holding what appeared to be a post towards him.
Cauchi was shot dead by a lone female police officer at the scene.
Speaking to reporters today, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the officer was “certainly a hero” who’s actions had saved many more lives.
“The wonderful inspector who ran into danger by herself and removed the threat that was there to others, without thinking about the risks to herself,” he said.
“We also see the footage of ordinary Australians putting themselves in harm’s way in order to help their fellow citizens. That bravery was quite extraordinary that we saw yesterday,” he said.
The shopping centre remained and will be an active crime scene for days, police said.
“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.”
The officer who shot the attacker performed CPR on him until the arrival of paramedics, who also worked on the man.
New South Wales Police 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. “It’s not a terrorism incident.”
Witnesses were shocked at the rare outburst of violence. Australia enacted strict gun laws after a man killed 35 and wounded another 23 in 1996, in Tasmania.
“I saw all the people running and I didn’t know what was happening,” said Ayush Singh. “I thought it was some people playing a prank or something and after some time I saw a guy with a knife running from the footpath to the cafe where I work.”
He said police arrived quickly and told everyone to stay put.
Singh said he saw the man running just metres away as he wielded a knife. “I didn’t hear him say anything,” he added. “Just a random guy stabbing people. Mad guy.”