{"id":50933,"date":"2024-04-14T19:20:44","date_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:20:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abnews.com.au\/?p=50933"},"modified":"2024-04-14T19:20:44","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:20:44","slug":"sydney-mall-attacker-identified-nothing-to-suggest-terror-motive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/?p=50933","title":{"rendered":"Sydney mall attacker identified, ‘nothing’ to suggest terror motive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian police on Sunday said a 40-year-old itinerant with mental illness was behind a Sydney shopping centre stabbing rampage that killed six people, including a new mum whose nine-month-old baby is still in hospital with serious wounds.<\/strong><\/p>\n

New South Wales police Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cooke said the assailant — who was shot dead by a senior police officer at the scene on Saturday — was Queensland man Joel Cauchi.<\/p>\n

Five women and one male security guard were killed in the attack as Cauchi roved through a packed shopping centre in the city’s Bondi Junction neighbourhood with a large knife. Twelve more people are still in hospital.<\/p>\n

“The sound of people screaming was horrific,” said eyewitness Daphi Kiselstein, who was shopping at the time of the attack and took refuge in a store with other terrified people.<\/p>\n

Cooke said there was no evidence to suggest Cauchi was “driven by any particular motivation, ideology or otherwise.”<\/p>\n

“We know that the offender in the matter suffered from, suffers from, mental health,” he added.<\/p>\n

Cauchi was tracked down and shot dead by solo senior police officer Amy Scott, who was instantly hailed by Australia’s prime minister as a “hero” who had saved countless lives.<\/p>\n

Cauchi’s parents said their son had been living in a vehicle and hostels of late, and was only in sporadic contact via text messages.<\/p>\n

Police said he was diagnosed with a mental health issue at age 17, but they had no indication about why he may have become violent.<\/p>\n

His parents issued a statement through police offering condolences to their son’s victims and their families.<\/p>\n

They had also sent a message of “support” to the officer who shot him dead, “expressing their concerns for her welfare.”<\/p>\n

Queensland police said Cauchi had been in contact with police several times over the last four to five years but has never been arrested or charged with any offence.<\/p>\n

He is believed to have travelled to Sydney about a month ago and hired a small storage unit in the city. It contained personal belongings, including a boogie board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian police on Sunday said a 40-year-old itinerant with mental illness was behind a Sydney shopping centre stabbing rampage that killed six people, including a new mum whose nine-month-old baby is still in hospital with serious wounds. New South Wales police Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cooke said the assailant — who was shot dead by a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1149,1150],"class_list":["post-50933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-3","tag-nothing-to-suggest-terror-motive","tag-sydney-mall-attacker-identified"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aglowmedia.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}