2024 Bondi Junction stabbings

2024 Bondi Junction stabbings
240px Police and paramedics outside the shopping centre
Map indicating the location of the incident
Location	Bondi Junction, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Coordinates
Date	13 April 2024 3:20pm – 4:00pm (AEST, UTC+10:00)
Attack type	Mass stabbing
Weapon	Knife
Deaths	7 (including the perpetrator)
Injured	12
Perpetrator	Joel Cauchi

The Bondi Junction stabbings occurred on 13 April 2024 when 40-year-old Joel Cauchi stabbed and killed six and injured a further twelve people in the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Five women and one man died, while the injured included a nine-month-old baby girl. The perpetrator was fatally shot by a police inspector.

Background

Westfield Bondi Junction is a major shopping centre in Sydney's eastern suburbs, and is the fourth-biggest shopping centre in New South Wales. The attack took place on a Saturday afternoon when the centre was filled with hundreds of visitors.

Attack

According to the NSW Police Force, the perpetrator entered Westfield Bondi Junction at around 3:10 pm AEST wearing a sports jersey, leaving the centre before returning 10 minutes later with what onlookers described as a 30-centimetre (12 in) knife. Eyewitnesses said that he was behaving erratically, and video clips from security cameras and bystanders filming showed the perpetrator lunging at some shoppers with his weapon while ignoring others. Several shoppers confronted the man, barring his passage to certain areas. Phone video showed one man, later identified as French construction worker Damien Guerot, preventing the perpetrator from climbing an escalator to a higher floor by brandishing a bollard at him.

File:Bondi Junction Westfields Stabbing Attack 4.jpg

Tactical police entering the shopping centre to clear the complex

The stabbings began as the perpetrator moved through the shopping centre after he returned at 3:20 pm. Officers from the NSW Police Force were called shortly before 4 pm, following reports of multiple people being stabbed. The building was evacuated and public transport around the area was rerouted. Around 40 New South Wales Ambulance resources were deployed to the scene.

The perpetrator was fatally shot in the chest by a lone police inspector, Amy Scott, who confronted him on the building's fifth floor after being directed by Guerot and a companion. After he lunged at her with a knife, Scott shot him three times. She began to perform CPR on him immediately after he fell. It is believed that the sound of the shooting alerted more people inside the shopping centre to the incident, which led to more evacuations and store attendants locking down their premises with sheltering customers inside.

Casualties

File:Bondi Junction Westfields Stabbing Attack 3.jpg

Paramedics outside the shopping centre waiting to treat injured victims

At 6:15 pm, NSW Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke, in a press conference, initially confirmed five victims had been killed along with the perpetrator, while several others remained critically injured.

Five victims died at the scene. Twelve others were hospitalised, including a nine-month-old girl who underwent surgery, and her mother, who later died in hospital, raising the death toll of victims to six. Some of the injured were described as being in a critical condition. A member of the shopping centre's security was among the injured.

All six fatalities were adults, comprising five women and one man. The deceased victims were: Cheng Yixuan, 27, a student from China; Pikria Darchia, 55, a Georgian national; Ashlee Good, 38, mother of the wounded baby; Dawn Singleton, 25, a retail worker in the centre; Faraz Ahmed Tahir, 30, an unarmed security guard at the centre and a refugee from Pakistan; and Jade Young, 47.

Perpetrator

On the morning after the stabbings, the perpetrator was named as Joel Cauchi, a 40-year-old man from Toowoomba, Queensland, who travelled to Sydney in March 2024. His family contacted police after recognising Cauchi on the news.

Police learned that Cauchi lived a transient lifestyle, he was not known to be employed, and was effectively homeless. He was understood to be single with no children. Cauchi reportedly suffered from mental health issues and was first diagnosed as such at the age of 17, with investigators stating that he was believed to have been schizophrenic. Cauchi's mental health is understood to have deteriorated in recent years, while his parents noticed that he had become fascinated with knives and began collecting about six of them in January 2023, adding that Joel had previously reported his father to police when he tried to take away his blades. Queensland Police said that Cauchi had been known to them for the past four to five years, with their last recorded interaction with him being a "street check" over suspicious behaviour in December 2023.

Cauchi reportedly had advertised himself online as a male escort. Less than a week prior to the attack, he also posted to a Bondi community Facebook page searching for surfing partners within Bondi.

Investigation

Preliminary enquiries suggested that Cauchi had acted alone. His motive remains unknown.

At 8:30 pm, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb addressed the media, saying police believed the attacker was a 40-year-old male and that the incident was not an act of terrorism. She said there was no ongoing risk to the public. She also alluded that the attacker might have been known to police. The Australian Federal Police were subsequently deployed to assist the state police in their investigation.

At a press conference on 14 April, the day after the stabbings, NSW Police revealed the perpetrator to be 40-year-old Joel Cauchi from Toowoomba, Queensland. They stated that Cauchi, shortly after coming to Sydney, "took possession of a storage facility", and that police had gone through that very small storage facility, later confirmed to be in Waterloo, an inner-city suburb of Sydney. Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cooke said that police had not received evidence that the attack was "driven by any particular motivation – ideology or otherwise", adding that Cauchi suffered from mental health issues.

On 15 April, Commissioner Webb stated that police believed Cauchi deliberately targeted women during the attack, while avoiding men.

NSW Premier Chris Minns announced the establishment of an A$18 million inquiry into the police response and Cauchi's previous interactions with authorities.

Misinformation

Misinformation circulated on Twitter, Tumblr and Telegram regarding the identity of the stabber. A 20-year-old University of Technology Sydney student with a Jewish surname was falsely accused of carrying out the attack. Many accounts and political commentators, such as neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell, "Aussie Cossack" (Simeon Boikov), and conspiracy theorist Maram Susli, targeted the student for his Jewish heritage. Channel 7 reported on this information without verification. Seven Network subsequently issued an apology for its false claims. An earlier false assumption that the perpetrator was Muslim and the attack was linked to Islamic terrorism was promoted by commentators such as Julia Hartley-Brewer and Rachel Riley.

Reactions

File:University of Sydney flag in half-staff following the 2024 Bondi Junction stabbings (2024) 01.jpg

Flag of the University of Sydney in half-mast following the attack

File:Makeshift memorial at USYD honoring a victim of the 2024 Bondi Junction stabbings (2024) 03.jpg

Makeshift memorial honoring a victim of the attack, at the University of Sydney

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that the attack was a "horrific act of violence" and also said he had been briefed on the attack and expressed sympathies with those affected as well as first responders. He also called Amy Scott a "hero". Albanese received messages regarding the attack from world leaders including US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

Acting NSW Premier Penny Sharpe convened a meeting of the state cabinet which also briefed Premier Chris Minns, who was in Tokyo on leave at the time of the attack. Minns said he was "horrified to hear about the events at Bondi Junction" and, along with Sharpe, expressed sympathies to those affected as well as first responders. Sharpe added that she was "personally distressed" over the stabbing. On 15 April, Minns said that he was considering the establishment of a permanent memorial to the victims of the attack. An online condolence book was set up by the NSW government. Queensland Premier Steven Miles offered full cooperation of his state's authorities in the investigation after it emerged that the perpetrator came from Queensland. Additional police were deployed in shopping centres in Queensland as a precaution.

Sympathies were expressed by King Charles III and Queen Camilla, as well as the Prince and Princess of Wales, along with Pope Francis.

North Melbourne Football Club players wore black armbands in its Australian Football League match against Geelong on 14 April in honour of Ashlee Good, who was the daughter of its board member and former player Kerry Good.

The parents of Joel Cauchi said that they were "absolutely devastated", adding that "Joel’s actions were truly horrific". They said that their son was schizophrenic and had stopped taking his medication. They also said they had no issues with the police officer who shot their son.

The day after the stabbing, members of the public laid flowers near the shopping centre's entrance on Oxford Street in tribute to the victims, while volunteers were deployed to offer mental health support. Albanese declared a national day of mourning on 15 April, during which flags were flown at half-mast on government buildings and other major landmarks while the Sydney Opera House was lit up with a black ribbon in the evening.

Police returned control of the Westfield shopping centre to its management on the evening of 14 April.

See also

• 2024 Wakeley stabbing, another mass stabbing in Sydney that occurred three days after this incident

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons