‘Radicalized’ 16-year-old shot dead by police in Australia
SYDNEY—Western Australian police shot and killed a “radicalized,” knife-wielding boy who had stabbed a man in a Perth car park, police and the state premier said on Sunday.
The 16-year-old “rushed” at responding police officers who first used Tasers before firing a single fatal shot, authorities said. “There are indications he had been radicalized online. At this stage, it appears he acted solely and alone,” Premier Roger Cook said.
Police received a call late on Saturday from a male warning that he was going to commit “acts of violence” but without giving his name or location, state police commissioner Col Blanch told reporters.
Within minutes, another call alerted police that a “male with a knife was running around the car park” in Willetton, a southern suburb of Perth, he said.
Police body camera images showed the teenager refusing officers’ demands to put down his knife.
The weapon was a 30-centimeter kitchen knife, believed to be from the attacker’s home, Blanch said.
Police officers fired two Tasers at the young man but “both of them did not have the full desired effect,” he said.
When the teen went toward a third officer who had drawn a firearm, the law enforcer fired a single shot and wounded him.
The young man died in hospital later that night, according to the police chief.
The “middle-aged” man who had been stabbed in the back was in “serious” but stable condition, police noted.
The victim reportedly suffered a single, “possibly” 2-cm stab wound that may have punctured a lung.
Anti-extremism program
Police believe the teenager sent “relevant messages” to some members of the Muslim community who immediately notified authorities.
The boy had “mental” and “online radicalization issues,” the police chief said.
According to Blanch, the attacker had been attending a program aimed at “countering violence extremism.”
The commissioner said the program was geared toward “helping individuals who are expressing ideologies that are of concern in our community.”
Police did not know what triggered the attack.
Blanch said it had the “hallmarks” of a terrorist incident but he was not yet making an official declaration.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese posted on social media that police and intelligence services had told him that there was no “ongoing threat” in the country.
Despite the rarity of violent crimes in Australia, the Perth attack comes less than a month after a knife-wielding assailant killed six people in a shopping mall in Sydney. The mentally ill assailant was shot dead by a police officer.
Two days later, an Assyrian Christian bishop was brutally stabbed during a live streamed service in Sydney. Several boys have been charged with terrorism-related offenses for the attack. —reports from AFP, REUTERS
