SYDNEY — A police officer and several other bystanders are being hailed for working “in the direction of hazard” to confront the attacker who stabbed and killed six folks at a suburban Sydney buying middle.
The shopping center, one of many nation’s busiest and close to the world-famous Bondi Seashore, was a hub of exercise on Saturday afternoon when 40-year-old Joel Cauchi used a knife to kill 5 girls and one man. He additionally injured at the least a dozen others, together with a 9-month-old child whose mom died throughout the assault, earlier than a police officer shot him useless.
New South Wales Police confirmed Sunday Cauchi had a historical past of psychological sickness and investigators weren’t treating the assault as terrorism-related.
The quantity would have been far larger, in keeping with NSW Premier Chris Minns who on Sunday praised “the bizarre members of the general public that cornered and confronted a assassin within the Westfield Purchasing Centre, exhibiting what I’d name instinctive bravery underneath horrible circumstances.”
Speaking to reporters whereas standing exterior the shopping center, Minns underscored the function performed by Inspector Amy Scott — the primary emergency responder on the scene — who shot and killed Cauchi and has since been broadly lauded as a hero.
“(Scott)… ran in the direction of hazard and confirmed professionalism and bravado and with no shadow of a doubt, saved many, many lives within the final 24 hours,” he stated.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese additionally praised Scott in a press convention in Canberra: “The great inspector who bumped into hazard by herself and eliminated the risk that was there to others, with out desirous about the dangers to herself,” he stated.
He recommended “bizarre Australians placing themselves in hurt’s method with a purpose to assist their fellow residents. That bravery was fairly extraordinary that we noticed yesterday.”
Video footage shared on-line confirmed many individuals fleeing, some carrying their youngsters as they escaped whereas a knife-wielding Cauchi ran erratically by way of the buying middle, lunging at folks.
Different footage confirmed a bystander holding what gave the impression to be a metallic pole to carry off Cauchi who was developing an escalator on the time.
A whole lot of floral tributes and messages for the victims had been laid exterior the closed shopping center on Sunday, which police stated would stay an lively crime scene for days if not weeks.