Hero female cop knifeman after
A POLICEWOMAN who single-handedly confronted and gunned down a crazed knifeman during a rampage that killed six people in a Sydney shopping centre was hailed a hero last night.
Inspector Amy Scott had been conducting routine checks on hospitality venues near the Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction. She responded as the man, 40, randomly targeted shoppers with a “massive” blade.
Hundreds fled in panic as terrified families sought safety in locked-down shops as the knifeman, dressed in a rugby shirt and shorts, walked into the centre and began stabbing at random around 3.20pm local time (6.20am BST).
One man protected women and children fleeing by standing in the way, while another confronted the assailant on an escalator by wielding a security pole.
But as the first officer on scene, Inspector Scott sprinted to the top level of the complex and risked her life when she confronted the attacker who had also injured eight others, including a baby.
The killer – thought by police not to have been motivated by violent “ideation” or terrorism and acting alone – was shot as he raised the knife and advanced towards her.
The senior police officer then selflessly performed CPR on him until paramedics and back-up arrived but the attacker died.
She was hailed a hero for preventing further bloodshed with one shopper left in
‘I can’t imagine her needing to hand over the most precious thing in her life. She was so smart...it was ripped away in seconds’
“no doubt, if she didn’t shoot him, he would have kept going. He was on the rampage”.
The first to be murdered was a mother whose nine-month-old daughter was left fighting for her life.
Mortally wounded Ash Good, 38, desperately handed her little girl over to two strangers, pleading “please help”, before they stemmed the child’s bleeding.
Hours earlier, she had posted touching images of her smiling baby girl sitting in a car seat accompanied by the song My Girl by The Temptations.
Four women and a man died at the centre, while Dr Good, an osteopath, died soon after arriving in hospital.
Her daughter Harriet – attacked in her pram before her mother was stabbed –was last night in a serious condition after having surgery at Sydney Children’s Hospital.
Even as the knifeman attacked, others rushed to help those injured or dying.
One man and his brother recalled how Dr Good desperately handed them her baby.
He said: “The baby got stabbed. The mum got stabbed and came over with a baby and threw it at me – I was holding the baby, it looked pretty bad. There was a lot of blood on the floor. I hope the baby is all right.”
His brother added: “He helped with holding the baby and trying to compress the baby and same with the mother.
“We just kept yelling to get some clothes, get some shirts and just help us to compress and stop the baby from bleeding.”
A shop worker, meanwhile, saw Dr Good on the level above “screaming really, really loudly”, recalling: “She’s running back and forth not knowing what to do. Then she comes back to the pram and picks up her baby and there’s just blood all over her back. The scream was unforgettable, it was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Sky News anchor Laura Jayes reported on own her friend’s death, saying: “I didn’t know the others but I knew one.”
While she did not identify Dr Good, she added: “She was incredible. If you have a new baby like that, a nine-month-old, you are still well and truly in the newborn phase.you are with that baby all the time.
“And for her, I can’t imagine her needing to hand over the most precious thing in her life. She was so smart, so beautiful and it was all ripped away in seconds.”
Last night, a friend of the Sydney mother said she was a “beautiful human” and the “world’s best mum”.
Bondi Rescue lifeguard Andy Reid, who had rushed to help multiple victims spread over several floors, recalls seeing an empty, abandoned pram. He said: “The lady next to us, she was in a really bad way – there were a couple of police working on her.”
He said he tried to do compressions on the second woman and was joined by paramedics “but I didn’t think she was going to make it”, continuing: “I went to help the next victim and as I went down…i just saw this empty pram. I’ve got three young kids…i just thought, ‘Oh my God.’”
A superviser of a luggage store witnessed the attacker stab a woman in front of him and saw the bodies of four people on the ground, including two security guards.
Yohan Francois Philip, 29, said as they locked down the shop they saw “a growing movement of around 50-ish” people run past, before a woman “banged on the door and said ‘let me in’”.
Seeing the knifeman come towards her, staff quickly pulled her inside
– before the killer ran up and stabbed another woman. He
said: “There was a nurse in the store who was adamant she wanted to leave and help...the security guard and I said ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen if I open this door’ but on her decision I let her out.”
Huma Hussainy was shopping when she heard screaming and saw the attacker, walking in a “cool” and confident manner, swiping at people indiscriminately.
She recalled two girls lying in a large pool of blood six feet apart, one aged around 17 – and when people were let out of the centre by police 45 minutes later, one body remained covered by a sheet.
A woman who had been shopping said: “I was hiding in the backroom. I was hearing gunshots. It’s just the worst thing ever, who does that to people?
“I saw a woman lying on the floor in Chanel. I didn’t see [the killer] properly, I was running. It’s just insanity – I wasn’t expecting it. I thought I was going to die.”
Another woman said: “I heard this screaming of kids, women and men outside the shop – as soon as I turned my face to look I saw a guy who was wearing this green outfit, jersey materials, with shorts and a T-shirt with a very massive knife on hand.
“Then I saw a dead body right in front [of a shop]. There was massive [amounts of] blood around that body, a few metres after there was another dead body as well on the floor which was pretty scary.”
Roi Huberman, a sound engineer at ABC TV who sheltered in a store, said: “Suddenly we heard a shot or maybe two shots and we didn’t know what to do.”
Last night, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “This was a horrific act of violence indiscriminately targeted at innocent people going about an ordinary Saturday doing their shopping.”
He added: “The first thoughts of all Australians were with the victims of these terrible acts and their loved ones. Bondi
Junction was the scene of shocking violence but it was also witness to the humanity and the heroism of our fellow Australians, our brave police, our first responders and of course everyday people who could never have imagined that they would face such a moment.
“Staff for whom this should have been a normal shift. Shoppers peacefully going about their lives.
“And yet for these Australians, their first instinct in the face of danger was to help someone else.”
Police Commissioner Karen Webb, who said the knifeman had acted alone, announced: “If he is the person that we believe, then we don’t have fears of that person holding an ideation.
“In other words, it’s not a terrorism incident. He is known to law enforcement but we are waiting to identify him formally.”
She added it was too early to comment on his psychological state.