A man stabbed six people to death at a busy Sydney, Australia shopping center Saturday before he was fatally shot, police said. Eight people, including a 9-month-old, were injured in the attack.
The 40-year-old suspect began stabbing people at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction, which is in the city’s eastern suburbs, before a police inspector shot him after he turned and raised a knife, New South Wales Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke told reporters.
Six of the victims — five women and a man — and the suspect died. 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. She added: "It’s not a terrorism incident.”
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She said police wouldn't identify the man yet and were still working to determine his motivation.
Cooke said a ”lengthy and precise" investigation was just beginning.
Cooke said the police inspector, a senior officer, was alone when she confronted the suspect and engaged him soon after her arrival on the scene, “saving a range of people's lives.”
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The officer “showed enormous courage and bravery,” Webb said.
Video showed many ambulances and police cars around the shopping center, and people streaming out.
Paramedics were treating patients at the scene.
Roi Huberman, a sound engineer at ABC TV in Australia, told the network that he sheltered in a store during the incident.
“And suddenly we heard a shot or maybe two shots and we didn’t know what to do,” he said. “Then the very capable person in the store took us to the back where it can be locked. She then locked the store and then she then let us through the back and now we are out.”
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the attack “a horrific act of violence that indiscriminately targeted innocent people.”
In a news conference he said the nation “offers our deepest condolences and sympathies to all those who are grieving for someone they have lost. And we send our strength to those who have been injured.”
