Man stabs 5 people to death at Sydney shopping center

Police shot a man to death after he stabbed five people to death in a busy Sydney shopping mall on Saturday, officials said. Several people, including a child, were also injured in the attack.

NSW Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cook told reporters the suspect stabbed nine people at the Westfield shopping center in Bondi Junction, in the city’s eastern suburbs, before an officer turned and raised a knife at him. shot. Five victims and the suspect died, he said. He gave no specific details about the condition of the injured.

Cook said he believed the suspect acted alone and that he was “satisfied there is no ongoing threat.” He said officials did not know who the culprit was. “It’s very raw,” he said, and a “long and precise” investigation has just begun.

“As far as we know, there is nothing at the scene to suggest any motive or ideology,” he said. Asked whether officials had ruled out the possibility of terrorism, he said: “We’re not ruling anything out.”

Cook said the officer, a senior police officer, “saved many lives” when she was alone when she confronted the suspect and made contact with him shortly after arriving at the scene.

Video showed numerous ambulances and police cars surrounding the mall as people poured out.

Paramedics are treating patients at the scene.

Witness Roi Huberman, a sound engineer for Australia’s ABC television station, told the network he hid in a shop during the incident.

“All of a sudden we heard a gunshot, or maybe two gunshots, and we didn’t know what to do,” he said. “Then the very capable person in the store took us to the back where we could lock it. Then she locked the store and then she let us in through the back and now we’re out.”