SYDNEY — Police recognized Sunday the assailant who stabbed and killed six individuals at a busy Sydney procuring heart earlier than a police officer fatally shot him.
New South Wales Police mentioned that Joel Cauchi, 40, was liable 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 Seaside.
NSW Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke informed 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 way of the profiling of the offender however very clearly to us at this stage, it will seem that that is associated to the psychological well being of the person concerned,” Cooke mentioned.
“There may be nonetheless, thus far… no info now we have obtained, no proof now we have recovered, no intelligence that now we have gathered that might recommend that this was pushed by any explicit 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 have been swiftly known as.
Six individuals — 5 girls and one man, aged between 20 and 55 — have been killed within the assault. One other 12 have been injured and stay in hospital, together with a 9-month-old little one whose mom was killed within the assault.
The male sufferer was a safety guard on the procuring heart and was later recognized as 30-year-old Faraz Tahir from Pakistan.
In line with 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 way of the shopping center and lunging at individuals.
“Once I took my footage it, was about 15 seconds perhaps earlier than he was shot by the police officer and he’d already killed numerous individuals at that time however we didn’t know and we had no concept what was happening,” mentioned Rohan Anderson, who had entered the procuring heart simply moments earlier than the assault. “We simply noticed an individual on the extent beneath us, with a knife, operating round and also you simply sit in disbelief that that is occurring in Australia, in Bondi,” he mentioned.
Different footage confirmed a person confronting the attacker on an escalator within the procuring 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.
Chatting with reporters on Sunday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese mentioned the officer was “actually a hero” whose actions had saved many extra lives.
“The great inspector who bumped into hazard by herself and eliminated the menace that was there to others, with out interested by the dangers to herself,” he mentioned.
“We additionally see the footage of peculiar Australians placing themselves in hurt’s approach in an effort 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 mentioned they have been devastated by Saturday’s occasions and so they had “no problem” with Scott taking pictures their son, saying “she was solely doing her job to guard others”.
“Joel’s actions have been actually horrific, and we’re nonetheless attempting to grasp what has occurred,” the assertion learn. “He has battled with psychological well being points since he was a young person.”
All through Sunday, individuals positioned numerous floral tributes for the victims outdoors the now-shuttered procuring heart. Police say it can stay an energetic crime scene for days.
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Smith reported from Newcastle, Australia