said Monday they have begun a probe into why who was mentally ill appeared to target women as he terrorized a Sydney shopping mall with a large knife, killing six people and wounding a dozen more.
Videos shared on social media showed a man pursuing mostly females as he rampaged through the Westfield shopping complex in Bondi Junction in Australia’s largest city on Saturday afternoon. In the attack, five of the six people killed, and most of those injured, were females.
“It’s obvious to me, it’s obvious to detectives that seems to be an area of interest that the offender focused on women and avoided the men,” New South Wales state Police Commissioner Karen Webb told the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC).
“The videos speak for themselves, don’t they? That’s certainly a line for inquiry for us,” Webb said.
Flags at half-mast
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told ABC Radio “the gender breakdown… was concerning.”
Later on Monday, Albanese posted on X: “This morning across Australia, flags are flying half-mast in honor of the victims of the Bondi Junction attack. We grieve together, as one.”
In a separate social media post, Albanese also lauded the efforts of the sole police officer who halted and killed the assailant amid his rampage, describing “selfless courage and bravery.”
Yasmin Catley, the New South Wales Minister for Police and Counter-terrorism said on Monday that the crime scene had now been handed back to Westfield.
Witnesses described how the attacker, wearing shorts and an Australian national rugby league jersey, ran through the mall with a knife. He was killed by Inspector Amy Scott, who confronted him while he was on the rampage.
Sydney police have since revealed the assailant had mental health issues in the past.
The victims
One of those who was stabbed to death was a young Chinese woman who was a student.
The other women killed were a designer, a volunteer surf lifesaver, the daughter of an entrepreneur, and a new mother whose nine-month-old baby girl was injured in the onslaught and is now in hospital.
The mother handed her wounded baby to strangers in desperation before being rushed to hospital where she later died.
The baby, named Harriet, remains in a stable condition in a Sydney hospital, according to police.
The only man killed was a Pakistani man who had been working as a security guard in the mall at the time of the rampage.
jsi/msh (AFP, Reuters)
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