SYDNEY — Police recognized Sunday the assailant who stabbed and killed six folks at a busy Sydney buying heart earlier than a police officer fatally shot him.
New South Wales Police stated that Joel Cauchi, 40, was chargeable for the Saturday afternoon assault on the Westfield Purchasing Centre in Bondi Junction, within the metropolis’s jap suburbs and never removed from the world-famous Bondi Seashore.
NSW Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke advised reporters at a media convention on Sunday that Cauchi suffered from but unspecified psychological well being points and police investigators weren’t treating the assault as terrorism-related.
“We’re persevering with to work by the profiling of the offender however very clearly to us at this stage, it could seem that that is associated to the psychological well being of the person concerned,” Cooke stated.
“There’s nonetheless, up to now… no data we’ve obtained, no proof we’ve recovered, no intelligence that we’ve gathered that will counsel that this was pushed by any specific motivation — ideology or in any other case,” he added.
The assault on the shopping center, one of many nation’s busiest and which was a hub of exercise on a very hot fall afternoon, started round 3:10 p.m. and police had been swiftly referred to as.
Six folks — 5 ladies and one man, aged between 20 and 55 — had been killed within the assault. One other 12 had been injured and stay in hospital, together with a 9-month-old baby whose mom was killed within the assault.
The male sufferer was a safety guard on the buying heart and was later recognized as 30-year-old Faraz Tahir from Pakistan.
Based on a written assertion Sunday from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Group of Australia, Faraz had been in Australia for a lower than a yr and was a “cherished member of our neighborhood.”
Video footage taken by a witness confirmed many individuals fleeing as a knife-wielding Cauchi ran erratically by the shopping center and lunging at folks.
“After I took my footage it, was about 15 seconds possibly earlier than he was shot by the police officer and he’d already killed various folks at that time however we didn’t know and we had no thought what was occurring,” stated Rohan Anderson, who had entered the buying heart simply moments earlier than the assault. “We simply noticed an individual on the extent under us, with a knife, working round and also you simply sit in disbelief that that is taking place in Australia, in Bondi,” he stated.
Different footage confirmed a person confronting the attacker on an escalator within the buying heart by holding what seemed to be a metallic pole.
Inspector Amy Scott, who was the primary emergency responder on the scene, shot and killed Cauchi.
Talking to reporters on Sunday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated the officer was “definitely a hero” whose actions had saved many extra lives.
“The fantastic inspector who bumped into hazard by herself and eliminated the menace that was there to others, with out desirous about the dangers to herself,” he stated.
“We additionally see the footage of bizarre Australians placing themselves in hurt’s means as a way to assist their fellow residents. That bravery was fairly extraordinary that we noticed yesterday,” he added.
In a written assertion later Sunday, Cauchi’s household stated they had been devastated by Saturday’s occasions and so they had “no concern” with Scott capturing their son, saying “she was solely doing her job to guard others”.
“Joel’s actions had been actually horrific, and we’re nonetheless attempting to understand what has occurred,” the assertion learn. “He has battled with psychological well being points since he was an adolescent.”
All through Sunday, folks positioned a lot of floral tributes for the victims exterior the now-shuttered buying heart. Police say it can stay an energetic crime scene for days.
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Smith reported from Newcastle, Australia
