Police know the assailant who stabbed six other people to death at a busy Sydney grocery mall before being shot dead by a police officer.
New South Wales police said Sunday that Joel Cauchi, 40, is to blame for Saturday afternoon’s attack at the Westfield shopping centre in Bondi Junction, on the eastern outskirts of the city and not far from the famous Bondi Beach.
New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner Anthony Cooke told reporters at a press convention on Sunday that Cauchi suffered from as yet unspecified fitness problems and that police investigators did not believe the attack was terrorism-related.
“We’re working on the profile of the offender, but at this point it’s very clear to us that it’s similar to the intellectual aptitude of the user involved,” Cooke said.
“At this point there is still no data that we have received, no evidence that we have recovered, no intelligence that we have accumulated that would recommend that this was motivated by any specific motivation, whether ideological or otherwise,” he added.
The attack on the mall, one of the busiest in the country and a hub of activity on a hot autumn afternoon, began around 3:10 p. m. and police were temporarily called.
Six other people (five women and one man, elderly men between 20 and 55 years old) were killed in the attack, and 12 others remain hospitalized, in addition to a 9-month-old boy whose mother was killed in the attack.
Two of the six affected were from overseas and had no relatives in Australia, Cooke said Sunday.
Video footage shared online appears to show dozens of people fleeing as Cauchi, armed with a knife, walked through the mall and lunged at other people.
Other footage shows a man confronting the assailant on an escalator at the mall as he hands him what appeared to be a pole.
Cauchi shot dead a lone police officer at the scene.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the officer was “certainly a hero” whose moves had saved many more lives.
“The glorious inspector who took the danger on her own and took the risk away from others, without thinking about the dangers she was in,” he said.
“We also see photographs of ordinary Australians putting themselves in harm’s way to help their fellow citizens. The courage we saw was quite extraordinary,” he added.
The mall will remain closed Sunday and will be an active crime scene for days, police said.
In Britain, the Prince and Princess of Wales posted on X that they were “shocked and saddened” by the stabbings in Sydney. Prince William and his wife Kate, members of the Australian royal family, said they stood with those affected and the “heroic emergency responders who risked their own lives to save others. “
Britain’s King Charles III also posted on X, saying he and his wife, Queen Camilla, were “completely shocked and horrified” by the stabbing.
“Our thoughts are with the families and we enjoy those who were killed so brutally in such a stupid attack,” the king said.
Pope Francis also expressed his sadness at the “senseless tragedy” in Sydney, offering his “spiritual closeness” to all those affected and his prayers for the dead and injured. The message contained in a telegram addressed to Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher and sent through Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state.