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Victoria Kim,Yan Zhuang and Isabella Kwai
Here are the latest developments.
Six people were killed and several others injured in a stabbing rampage Saturday afternoon at a crowded major mall in Sydney, Australia’s deadliest act of mass violence in at least eight years.
The attacker was shot and killed by a lone police officer who was directed into the mall by people fleeing the scene, police said. The officer was following the man with the knife, trying to catch up to him, when he turned and lunged at her with the weapon, according to the police. The officer then opened fire, saving lives, Anthony Cooke, assistant commissioner for the New South Wales Police, said.
The man stabbed people as he moved through the mall, the police said. Four women and one man died at the scene. Emergency responders said eight people were transported to area hospitals, and the police said that one of them, a woman, later died. A 9-month-old baby was among those injured and has been in surgery, Karen Webb, the New South Wales Police commissioner, said.
The police said they have not formally identified the man but believe they know his identity. They believe he was 40 years old and acted alone. There is no continuing threat and the attack was not motivated by terrorism, Police Commissioner Webb said.
The attack has stunned and horrified a country where acts of mass violence are rare. “Australians will be shocked tonight,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at a news conference on Saturday afternoon.
Here’s what you need to know:
The police said the attacker’s motive was unclear, but there were no immediate indications that it was a hate crime. He did not appear to be targeting any specific person, the police said.
The attack happened in Bondi Junction, a busy commercial district in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, a wealthy area near the coast.
Multiple calls about a stabbing began coming from people at the mall, the Westfield Bondi Junction, shortly after 3:30 p.m.
Damien Cave contributed reporting.
April 13, 2024, 9:26 a.m. ET
Yan Zhuang
Acts of mass violence are rare in Australia.
The stabbing attack in a Sydney shopping center that left at least six people dead on Saturday was Australia’s worst act of mass violence since 2017, when a driver killed six people by deliberately plowing his car into pedestrians in Melbourne.
In a country where mass stabbings and shootings are rare — in part because of strict gun laws — the latest attack has horrified Australians.
Here is how it compares to other acts of mass violence in the country in recent years:
June 2019: A gunman killed four people in a shooting spree across the main business district of Darwin, in the Northern Territory.
January 2017: A man with drug-induced psychosis drove his car into a busy shopping street in Melbourne’s central business district, killing six people and injuring more than 20 others.
December 2014: A gunman held 18 people hostage in a cafe in Sydney’s central business district. The standoff with the police, which lasted 16 hours, ended with the deaths of two hostages and the gunman. The authorities later labeled it a terrorist attack.
November 2011: Fourteen people died when a nurse set fire to a nursing home in Quakers Hill, near Sydney.
April 1996: Australia’s worst mass shooting occurred at Port Arthur, Tasmania, when a gunman killed 35 people. Just weeks later, the country’s leaders brought in strict gun laws.
April 13, 2024, 8:17 a.m. ET
John Yoon
Andrew Reid was shopping for a bed when he heard that people had been stabbed at the mall. He used his training as a lifeguard to help treat two women who had been stabbed on the mall’s fourth floor. “We grabbed some clothes out of the clothes store, trying to stop the bleeding,” he said, adding that he had managed to stop one of the women from bleeding further.
April 13, 2024, 7:48 a.m. ET
John Yoon and Isabella Kwai
Witnesses describe harrowing scenes as shoppers fled or huddled in stores.
Witnesses to the stabbings at a mall in a Sydney, Australia, on Saturday described a scene of terror as shoppers fled from the knife-wielding man or huddled in stores as panic spread through the shopping center.
Some shoppers hid inside as alarms blared. Others ran out, screaming as they passed by bodies on the floor.
When Gavin Lockhart, 37, saw people running as he sat inside a coffee shop at the mall, there was a moment of confusion. “Is it a celebrity?” he first thought. “Is it because of a gunman?”
Then he fled when he heard, “He’s got a knife! He’s got a knife!”
He followed the coffee shop’s owner, Michael Dunkley, 57, who also brought his wife, who was cooking, and two baristas into a staffroom where they could lock the door. Mr. Dunkley said afterward that just one thought was in his mind when the screaming began: “I have to get my wife and staff to safety.”
Mr. Dunkley left the room to try to chase down the attacker, whom he described as a thin man with a beard and short hair, wearing dark green pants and a green jersey.
Then, Mr. Dunkley recounted, he saw a police officer attempt to stop the assailant. When the officer told the man to put his knife down, he lunged toward her with his weapon, the cafe owner said.
“He didn’t say anything,” Mr. Dunkley said. “He seemed determined.”
The officer then shot the attacker on the fifth floor of the mall, on a walkway near a phone store and a clothing alteration shop, Mr. Dunkley said. When the attacker fell, the officer immediately began administering CPR on him, the cafe owner said.
“In this country, this stuff shouldn’t happen,” Mr. Dunkley said. “People come here because it’s safe.”
Andrew Reid, 44, had been shopping for a bed when he heard that people had been stabbed at the mall and shoppers were told to evacuate. Many of the stores were in lockdown, but after seeing people lying on the floor, bleeding, he said, he used his training as a lifeguard to help two women.
One had a wound in her back, he said, expressing outrage that the attacker would stab someone from behind. “It’s so cowardly,” Mr. Reid said.
“We grabbed some clothes out of the clothes store, trying to stop the bleeding,” he added.
About 30 yards away, the second woman lay unconscious, he recounted. He ran over to find a deep wound on her chest just above where he needed to do compressions, which made CPR difficult.
“There was a lot of blood around her,” he said. “I honestly don’t think she made it.”
Even hours after the attack, witnesses were struggling to process what had just happened.
In his 20 years working as a lifeguard at nearby beaches, Mr. Reid said, he had mostly dealt with drownings. While he had experience with wounds, he said he did not usually treat several stab victims in succession. He said that he was horrified, but tried not to be affected while trying to save people’s lives.
“You just detach emotion from that sort of stuff,” he said. “You just got to.”
Mr. Lockhart, who said he had seen the officer shoot the attacker, sounded dazed. “The one positive I’m looking at is the police officer probably saved my life,” he said.
April 13, 2024, 7:40 a.m. ET
John Yoon
Witnesses struggled to process what had happened at the mall even hours after the attack. “I don’t think it’s really sank in,” Lockhart, who also saw the officer shoot the attacker, said in an interview. “The one positive I’m looking at is the police officer probably saved my life.”
April 13, 2024, 7:35 a.m. ET
John Yoon
Gavin Lockhart was sitting in a coffee shop at the mall when he suddenly saw people running. “Is it a celebrity?” he first thought. “Is it because of a gunman?” Then he said he fled when he began hearing, “He’s got a knife! He’s got a knife!”
April 13, 2024, 7:27 a.m. ET
John Yoon
The officer appeared to shoot the attacker in the chest two to three times on the fifth floor of the mall, on a walkway that bridges two buildings, near a phone store and a clothing alteration shop, Dunkley said. When the attacker fell, the officer immediately began giving him CPR.
April 13, 2024, 7:27 a.m. ET
John Yoon
Michael Dunkley, 57, who runs a coffee shop at the mall, said he witnessed the moment the police officer apprehended the attacker. The officer told the man to stop and put the knife down, then he lunged forward with his weapon. The attacker “didn’t say anything,” Dunkley said. “He seemed determined.”
April 13, 2024, 7:03 a.m. ET
Yan Zhuang
The police “became aware of who we believe the offender is,” but have not formally identified him, the New South Wales police commissioner said. “If it is in fact the person we that believe it is, then we don’t have fears for that person holding an ideation — in other words, it’s not a terrorism incident,” she said.
April 13, 2024, 6:54 a.m. ET
Yan Zhuang
The shopping mall will be closed tomorrow as police conduct their investigation.
April 13, 2024, 6:53 a.m. ET
Isabella Kwai
“It looked like he was on a killing spree,” said a witness, describing the moment that a police officer fatally shot the attacker. “If she didn’t shoot him, he would have kept going.”
April 13, 2024, 6:46 a.m. ET
Yan Zhuang
The police commisioner added that it did not appear that the victims were specifically targeted. Among those injured in the attack was a 9-month-old baby, who has been in surgery.
April 13, 2024, 6:43 a.m. ET
Yan Zhuang
The victims are five women and one man. Five people died at at the scene, and one woman died later in a hospital.
April 13, 2024, 6:42 a.m. ET
Yan Zhuang
The attacker was a 40-year-old man, said Karen Webb, the police commissioner for New South Wales. The police believed they knew his identity but were still in the process of confirming it, she said.
April 13, 2024, 6:37 a.m. ET
Isabella Kwai
People evacuated from the shopping center said they were terrified as they huddled in place. “I thought I was going to die,” one woman told the national broadcaster, ABC, adding that she saw a woman lying on the floor in the Chanel store. “It was insanity.”
April 13, 2024, 6:33 a.m. ET
Isabella Kwai
Routine bus routes have been rerouted around the Bondi Junction area, with transport authorities warning of lengthy delays.
April 13, 2024, 6:20 a.m. ET
Isabella Kwai
Local officials have postponed several events in the area in response to the police investigation, they said, including a concert at Bondi Beach and a film night at a nearby park.
Following the ongoing police operation at Westfield Bondi Junction, we have postponed tonight's Bondi Beach Bash concert for Youth Week at Bondi Pavilion as well as Movies in the Park at Varna Park. New dates will be announced in the coming days.
— Waverley Council (@WaverleyCouncil) April 13, 2024
April 13, 2024, 6:09 a.m. ET
Isabella Kwai
Bondi Junction is a popular meet-up spot and transit hub.
Tourists wandering the sprawling mall for gifts. Beachgoers picking up sunscreen before heading to the water. Friends meeting for coffee.
Bondi Junction, the area of Sydney, Australia, where Saturday’s stabbings took place, is a bustling hub that regularly draws crowds on weekends. They can go to the glossy Westfield mall complex and buy from high-end stores like Chanel and Gucci, catch a film at the cinema or buy their weekly groceries at major retailers.
The shopping area’s early development in the 1970s made it one of Australia’s largest development projects. And during a major renovation in 2005, it was known as one of the largest shopping centers in the Southern Hemisphere. An array of small businesses, including cafes and yoga studios, have sprung up in the area, making it an attractive meeting ground.
It is also a major gateway that funnels beachgoers and residents from central Sydney to the wealthy eastern suburbs that are home to many of the city’s most popular coastlines. That includes the famous Bondi Beach, which means that on any given weekend, tourists and backpackers are in the mix along with residents of the area.
April 13, 2024, 6:00 a.m. ET
Yan Zhuang
The New South Wales Police commissioner, Karen Webb, will address the media at 8:30 p.m. local time (in about half an hour), the police said in a statement.
April 13, 2024, 5:54 a.m. ET
Yan Zhuang
One more person injured in the attack has died, taking the total number of stabbing victims from five to six, according to a statement from the New South Wales police.
April 13, 2024, 5:50 a.m. ET
Yan Zhuang
Mass acts of violence are rare in Australia. In 2019, a gunman killed four people in Darwin, in the Northern Territory. In 2017, six people died in Melbourne’s central business district when a driver plowed his car into a pedestrian zone. And in Sydney in 2014, a gunman held 18 people hostage in a cafe in a 16-hour standoff, which ended with the deaths of two hostages and the gunman.
April 13, 2024, 5:41 a.m. ET
Yan Zhuang
“This was a horrific act of violence indiscriminately targeted at the innocent people going about an ordinary Saturday, doing their shopping,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
April 13, 2024, 5:41 a.m. ET
Yan Zhuang
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese praised the courage of the police officer who confronted and shot the attacker. “She’s certainly a hero; there’s no doubt she saved lives through her actions,” he said.
April 13, 2024, 5:23 a.m. ET
Yan Zhuang
“The devastating scenes at Bondi Junction are beyond words and understanding,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at a news conference on Saturday evening. “Australians will be shocked this evening.”