SIX people have died after a rampaging knifeman stabbed terrified shoppers as they tried to flee a busy mall in Sydney today.
Witnesses told how they saw the knifeman stab nine people including a mum and her nine-month-old baby this afternoon.
SuppliedA police officer crouches over the body of the attacker after he stabbed at least six shoppers[/caption]
The assailant was shot dead after raising a knife at a senior police officer
X/@AnnaMcGovernUKA brave bystander picks up a pole and faces the knifeman front on[/caption]
Chilling accounts of one of the most horrific acts of violence in recent Australian history emerged as it was confirmed six victims had died.
Two men told of how they helped a mother and her baby who had both been stabbed, and pressed shirts to the infant’s wounds in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
They said the mum, out of sheer desperation, threw her injured baby to the brothers.
Tragically, it has since been revealed that the heroic mum is among the dead.
New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb told media on Saturday night that the baby was in surgery.
Some shoppers could be heard screaming as others hid in stores and tried their best to keep quiet.
Armed with a large knife, the assailant ran through the centre on the hunt for victims, at one point coming face to face with a brave civilian who tried to stop him on an escalator.
Video showed the knifeman walking up the escalator toward a man holding a pole, seemingly poised to use it against the assailant if necessary.
Police are waiting to formally identify the assailant but said he is a 40-year-old man known to law enforcement, and that they “do not have fears for that person holding an ideation”.
Eight patients were rushed to various hospital facilities across Sydney – their conditions ranging from serious to critical – and six other injured people were assessed by NSW paramedics at the scene.
Earlier, NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cook said that five victims had died in the attack at Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre.
He said: “About 3.10 this afternoon a male walked into a restaurant at Bondi Junction, he left the centre and then returned about 3.20.
“As he moved to the centre, he engaged with about nine people, and it’s clear that during that engagement he caused harm to those people, we believe by stabbing them with a weapon he was carrying.”
He said the man was shot after he raised a knife at a senior police officer.
Cook explained: “She (the inspector) confronted the offender who had moved by this stage to level five, as she continued to walk quickly behind him to catch up with him.
“He turned, faced her, raised a knife. She discharged a firearm and that person is now deceased.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hailed the lone officer who shot the attacker as a “hero”.
He said: “There is no doubt she saved lives through her action and it is a reminder that those people who wear uniform are people who rush to danger, not away from it and I give thanks to every one of them for the actions they have taken up to now.”
The number of people killed by the knifeman rose to six about 8pm local time.
Four women and one man were killed in the shopping centre and another woman, believed to be the baby’s mum, died in hospital.
We just kept yelling out to get some clothes, get some shirts and and just help us to compress and stop the baby from bleeding
Witness
Video showed crowds fleeing the busy mall – located in Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs, just a five-minute drive from Bondi Beach – as police officers rushed to the scene about 3.45pm local time.
Outside the shopping centre, two men told 9News about how they helped a mother and her baby, who were both bleeding.
The brothers said they saw a man “run up to the woman with the baby.”
One of the men said: “We got them into the store … rang for help.”
They said the mother and her baby had been stabbed and they were trying to compress the baby’s wounds using shirts from the shop they were hiding in.
Later, one of the men told Sky News: “I was holding the baby, it looked pretty bad.”
His brother added: “He helped with holding the baby and trying to compress the baby and same with the mother.
“We just kept yelling out to get some clothes, get some shirts and and just help us to compress and stop the baby from bleeding.”
The first brother added: “There was a lot of blood on the floor. I hope the baby is all right,” Sky News reports.
An infant was transported to Sydney Children’s Hospital, according to The Australian.
‘Saw bodies on the ground’
The baby and the seven other victims rushed to hospital were being treated as trauma patients.
One woman, named Aviva, told 2GB Radio that she “came across dead bodies on the ground” as she ran to her car.
She said: “I saw two.”
“It’s awful, it’s just terrible, I’m in shock,” WA Today reports.
A brave bystander was seen trying to stop the knifeman by picking up a pole and facing him front on.
Video showed him standing at the top of an escalator in the shopping centre as the knifeman ascended towards him.
Shoppers Huma Hussainy and Mohamad Naveed said they saw two girls lying in a large pool of blood outside a store, about two metres apart, The Age reports.
They said one of the girls looked to be about 17 years old.
Hussainy said someone “walked up and tried to wake the girl [who had been stabbed],” but she couldn’t be roused.
Forty-five minutes later, as the couple was escorted from the centre, one of the girls had been taken away and a screen had been set up over the second girl.
PM commends bravery
Geoff Young, 42, was at the Westfield with his 18-month-old child when a noise started “coming from everywhere”.
He told The Age that he stumbled into the aftermath of a stabbing spree and saw a woman lying on the ground bleeding, as another person received CPR, and a third person lay in a pool of blood.
Witness Ellie Williams, 21, was finishing lunch with her friend about 3.40pm when she saw groups of people running and screaming through the centre.
She said she heard a man scream and three gunshots as she escaped through a fire exit, before alarms sounded and police arrived.
NSW Police said in a statement about 4.30pm local time: “A critical incident has commenced following the shooting of male at Bondi Junction.
“Just before 4pm, emergency services were called to Westfield Bondi Junction following reports of multiple people stabbed.
“People are urged to avoid the area.
“Inquiries are continuing in relation to the incident and there are no further details.”
PM Anthony Albanese expressed his “heartbreak” over the deadly knife attack, telling 2GB: “Australians will be shocked as I am by an incident such as this.
“It’s such a shock this happens in a country such as ours, where people should be able to go about their shopping on a Saturday afternoon without any thought that there is risk involved.”
He commended Australians for their first instinct being “to help someone else” even in this instance of “shocking violence”.
The knifeman ascends an escalator in the shopping centre
AFPPolice enter the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre[/caption]
Footage captured by a witness shows what appears to be a knife laying on the floor of the shopping centre
AFPPolice enter the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre after the stabbing[/caption]
AFPPolice and paramedics work outside the centre[/caption]
APEmergency services gather near the scene of the stabbing[/caption]
TwitterTerrified shoppers flee the scene of the suspected stabbing[/caption]
9 NewsArmed cops surround the shopping mall[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
