SYDNEY — Nine people were killed and at least 11 others injured after two men opened fire Sunday at Australia’s Bondi Beach, a popular gathering spot for locals and tourists, police said.
One of the gunmen was killed, and another suspected shooter was critically injured, New South Wales police said Sunday. Two officers were among the injured, they said.
Police said a “number of suspicious items located in the vicinity” were being examined.
The New South Wales Ambulance Service said that it was called around 6:45 p.m. and that emergency responders were treating people at the scene and transporting others to hospitals.
Earlier Sunday, police said there was a Jewish event in the area at the time but have not confirmed that it was the target. Nobody could be reached at Chabad of Bondi, the organization that was hosting an event on the beach. The group’s building was guarded by private security.
Police are appealing for anyone with footage to share it with them.
What would typically be a busy early summer evening, with drum circles on the sand, was instead bathed in police and ambulance lights and sirens.
Arthur Arnold, 26, was at his apartment nearby around 7 p.m. when he said he heard gunshots “left and right.”
“I thought it was a car backfiring,” said Arnold, a Canadian in Australia on a work holiday visa. He ran outside and saw scores of people running in all directions.
In a statement Sunday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the shooting “shocking and distressing” and said emergency responders were working to save lives at the scene of the attack.
Mass shootings are rare in Australia, and Sunday’s attack is the deadliest since 1996, when a lone gunman killed 35 people near Port Arthur, Tasmania, using a legally purchased Colt AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.
The attack — the country’s deadliest massacre of the 20th century — prompted the government to buy back firearms and strengthen gun-control laws. Within a year, the government bought back 650,000 firearms.
Australia’s move to restrict the ownership of automatic and semiautomatic rifles and shotguns has become a frequent point of reference for other countries responding to mass shootings and amid the long debate over how the United States could tackle mass shootings.
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