Australia: New knife attack, ‘radical’ 16-year-old shot dead by police

Australia has been rocked by another knife attack. A “radical” and mentally ill 16-year-old boy was shot dead by police on Saturday night in a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, after stabbing a man with his weapon, authorities said today. The attack came less than a month after another attack, this time deadly, left six people dead in Sydney.

A teenager armed with a knife “lunged” at police and was fatally shot by an officer, Western Australia Premier Roger Cook told a news conference. “There are signs that he has been radicalized online. But I want to reassure the population, at this stage it appears that he acted alone,” he said. He added that the young man’s family is cooperating with the police, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) website reports.

A man with a knife was running through the parking lot

A man called police Saturday night warning that he was about to commit “acts of violence” but did not give his name or location, state police spokesman Colonel Blanch told reporters. Minutes later, he added, police received a 911 call warning that there was “a man with a knife running” in a car park in Willetton, a southern Perth suburb.

The man was armed with a 12-inch kitchen knife and, based on police body camera images, the teen refused to put it on the ground as police asked, Colonel Blanch said. Agents used two stun guns, but “neither had the desired effect,” he said.

“The man continued to approach (the officer) with a gun, who fired a single shot and fatally wounded the man,” a police spokesman said. On the evening of the same day, the teenager died in the hospital. The victim, a “mature” man who suffered a single stab wound during the attack, is in a “serious” but stable condition, a police spokesman said. According to ABC, the attacker appears to have attacked him accidentally.

“There is no place for violent extremism in Australia”

The teenager allegedly sent messages to members of the Muslim community, who immediately notified police, Colonel Blanch explained, without disclosing their contents. The young man had “mental health problems as well as problems with online radicalization”, he added. However, according to ABC, he noted that at this stage the attack is not being classified as terrorist.

In recent years, the attacker was monitored as part of a program to combat violence and extremism. “This is not a crime-based approach, this is a program aimed at helping people who express ideologies that are of concern to our community” but who “are not necessarily committing crimes,” Colonel Blanch explained.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese explained that he was informed of the facts by the police and intelligence agencies, according to which there was no “ongoing threat.” “We are a nation committed to peace and there is no place for violent extremism in Australia,” he wrote on social media.

Violent crime is rare in Australia, but the incident comes less than a month after another stabbing killed six people at a shopping center in Sydney, in the southeast of the country. The perpetrator of this attack, Joel Koshy, a 40-year-old man suffering from mental illness, was shot and killed by police. His parents said their son was diagnosed with schizophrenia at 17, then left home in north-east Queensland and refused treatment.

Two days after the shopping center attack, an Assyrian church bishop was also stabbed while live-streaming a sermon at a Sydney church. The victim survived his injuries. A 16-year-old boy has since been charged with an “act of terrorism” and seven teenagers who were “likely” planning the attack have been arrested as part of the investigation.