Sydney –

Australian police said on Monday they were investigating why a 40-year-old mentally ill man appeared to target women as he strolled through a Sydney shopping mall armed with a machete, killing six people and injuring a dozen others.

Footage shared on social media shows unshaven homeless man Joel Cauchi rampaging through the vast, crowded Westfield shopping center in Bondi Junction on Saturday afternoon, pursued by The victims are mostly women.

Five of the six victims were women, as were most of the injured.

“The videos speak for themselves, don’t they? It’s certainly an inquiry for us,” NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said.

“It was obvious to me, and it was obvious to detectives, that this seemed to be an area of ​​interest – criminals focusing on women and avoiding men,” she told national broadcaster ABC.

Weber stressed that police had no way of knowing what the attacker was thinking.

“That’s why it’s important that detectives spend so much time interviewing people who knew him.”

Couch’s Facebook profile shows he is from Toowoomba, near Brisbane, and attended a local high school and college.

His parents said he had suffered from mental health issues since he was a teenager.

“Very painful”

The last of the six Couch victims was identified on Monday as Yixuan Cheng, a young Chinese woman who was a student at the University of Sydney.

Other women killed include a designer, a surf lifesaving volunteer, the daughter of an entrepreneur and a new mother who was hospitalized with an injured nine-month-old baby.

Ashlee Good, a 38-year-old mother, desperately handed her bleeding baby girl to a stranger before being taken to hospital where she died from her injuries.

Health authorities said her baby Harriet was being treated in a Sydney hospital in a serious condition but was expected to improve.

The only victim was 30-year-old Pakistani Faraz Tahir, who was working as a security guard when he was stabbed.

Health authorities said four people had been discharged from hospitals in the past 24 hours and a total of eight people injured in the attack remained in hospital, some in critical condition.

Couch’s attack lasted about half an hour and ended when lone police inspector Amy Scott found him and shot him.

The state police chief said Scott, who was hailed as a hero by police and political leaders, was dealing with the “very traumatic incident” with his family.

Couch’s parents expressed their thoughts about the victim in a statement and said their son’s actions were “truly horrific.”

“We’re still trying to understand what happened.”

“Do her job well”

The parents also sent a message to the police officer who killed their son.

They said: “She was just doing her job to protect others and we hope she copes well.”

Couch is believed to have traveled to Sydney about a month ago and rented a small storage unit in the city, police said. It contained personal belongings.

His parents said he had been living in his car and in hotels, with only sporadic contact with his family via text messages.

Flowers were planted outside Bondi Shopping Center as people paid their respects to the victims.

Flags flew at half-mast across the country in mourning.

At night, the Sydney Opera House will be lit up with black ribbons.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had spoken to some of the victims’ families.

“The gender classification is certainly concerning – every victim here is mourned,” he told ABC radio, promising a “comprehensive” police investigation.

misinformation

The prime minister also blamed those who spread false information about the attack.

“What social media has done is make everyone a publisher, and some mainstream media outlets have spread some misinformation,” he said.

While some social media users incorrectly attributed the attack to terrorism, an Australian broadcaster had to apologize for incorrectly identifying a 20-year-old student as the perpetrator.

New South Wales Premier Chris Mining told reporters there would be a public coronial inquiry into the attack.

He said it would look into the police response and criminal investigation, as well as the killer’s past interactions with state health authorities.