Knife attacker kills 5 in Sydney mall, shot dead by police
SYDNEY—An attacker who fatally knifed five people in a Sydney mall was shot dead by police in Sydney’s beachside suburb of Bondi on Saturday, police said, as hundreds fled the scene.
The assailant was shot by a police officer after he engaged with nine people in the busy Westfield Bondi Junction shopping center, police said.
“She discharged a firearm and that person is now deceased. I am advised that there are five victims who are now deceased as a result of the actions of this offender,” New South Wales Police assistant commissioner Anthony Cooke told a press conference.
Police have no indication of the man’s motive, Cooke said.
Australia has some of the world’s toughest gun and knife laws, and attacks such as the one on Saturday are rare.
Emergency services were called to the mall just before 4 p.m. after the stabbing reports, police said.
Eight people, including a child, had been taken to hospital, said a New South Wales ambulance spokesperson.
Reese Colmenares, an eyewitness who hid in a hardware store with 20 others when people started running out of the mall, said she saw a baby with stab wounds being taken to an ambulance.
Terrified mother“The mother was terrified, the mother was sad, just holding (and) comforting the baby,” she told Reuters.
Two other witnesses told Reuters they heard shots fired.
“Even 20 minutes after people were rushed out of the mall, I saw SWAT teams of people sweeping the surrounding streets,” one witness said.
The other said they saw a woman lying on the ground before they took shelter in a jewelry store. —REUTERS
