Australian police shot and killed a knife-wielding 16-year-old boy after he stabbed a man in an attack that had the “hallmarks” of terror, authorities said Sunday.
The incident happened on Saturday night in the car park of a hardware store in Willetton, a suburb of the west coast city of Perth.
Police said they received an emergency phone call after 10pm from a teenager who said he was going to commit acts of violence, Western Australian Police Commission Col Blanch said. Press conference sunday
Police said they were later alerted by a phone call from a member of the public that there had been a knife attack in the car park. Three police officers responded, one armed with a gun and two with conducted energy devices.
The teenager, who was described only as a 16-year-old Caucasian male, attacked the man and then lunged at police officers before being shot.
Police deployed both conducted energy devices, but were unable to incapacitate the boy before he was shot dead, Blanch said.
A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to the back. He was taken to a hospital in serious but stable condition, according to a police statement.
Blanch said the incident had the “hallmarks” of a terrorist attack, adding that it “meets the criteria or at least the definition” of such crimes.
He said members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with police about the boy's behavior before he was killed on Saturday.
The teenager had been participating in a program for young people at risk of radicalisation, Blanch added.
“There are indications that he had been radicalized online,” Western Australian Premier Roger Cook said a press conference
“But I want to reassure the community at this stage, it appears he acted alone,” Cook added.
Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organization officers are conducting a counter-terrorism investigation in the east coast city of Sydney after another 16-year-old boy stabbed a bishop and an Assyrian Orthodox priest in a church. on April 15.
This guy has been accused of a terrorist act. Six of his alleged associates have also been charged with a range of offences, including conspiracy to participate in or plan a terrorist act. All remain in prison.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitterwho had been briefed on the latest stabbing in Perth by Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw and ASIO director-general Mike Burgess, who heads the country's main national spy agency.
“I am advised that there is no ongoing threat to the community based on the information available,” Albanese said.
“We are a peace-loving nation and there is no place for violent extremism in Australia,” he added.
The imam of Perth's largest mosque, the Nasir Mosque, condemned the stabbing.
“There is no place for violence in Islam,” Imam Syed Wadood Janud said in a statement.
“We appreciate the efforts of the police to keep our communities safe. I also want to commend the local Muslim community who had flagged the individual down earlier with the police,” Wadood added.
Some Muslim leaders have criticized Australian police for declaring last month's church stabbing a terrorist attack, but not a rampage two days earlier in a Sydney shopping centre in which six people died and a dozen were injured. The 40-year-old attacker in the mall attack was killed by police. Police have not yet released the man's motive.
The attack on the church is only the third classified by Australian authorities as a terrorist act since 2018.
In December 2022, three Christian fundamentalists shot and killed two policemen and a bystander in an ambush near the community of Wiembilla in the state of Queensland. The shooters were later killed by police.
In November 2018, a Somali-born Muslim stabbed three pedestrians in central Melbourne, killing one, before being shot dead by police.
