Australian police fatally shot a 16-year-old boy armed with a knife after he stabbed a man in an attack that had the “hallmarks” of terror, officials said Sunday.
The incident happened on Saturday evening in the parking lot of a hardware store in Willetton, a suburb of the west coast city of Perth.
Police said they received an emergency phone call after 10 p.m. from a teenager saying he was going to commit violence, Colonel Blanch of the Western Australian Police Commission said in a statement. press conference Sunday.
Police said they were alerted by a phone call from a member of the public that a stabbing attack was in progress in the car park. Three police officers intervened, one armed with a pistol and two with IEDs.
The teen, who was only described as a 16-year-old white male, attacked the man then lunged at officers before being shot.
Police deployed both conductive energy devices, but were unable to incapacitate the boy before he was killed by a single gunshot, Blanch said.
A man in his thirties was found on site with a back injury. He was taken to hospital in serious but stable condition, a police statement said.
Blanch said the incident had the “hallmarks” of a terrorist attack, adding that it “meets the criteria or at least the definition” of that type of crime.
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 was participating in a program for young people at risk of radicalization, Blanch added.
“There are indications he was radicalized online,” Western Australia Premier Roger Cook told a news conference. a press conference.
“But I want to reassure the community that at this point it appears he acted solely and alone,” Cook added.
Officers from the police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization have been carrying out a counter-terrorism investigation in Sydney on the east coast after another 16-year-old boy stabbed a bishop and an Assyrian Orthodox priest in a church. April 15.
This boy was accused of committing a terrorist act. Six of his alleged associates were also charged with various offenses, including conspiracy to commit or plan a terrorist act. All remain in detention.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a post to X, formerly known as Twitterthat he had been briefed on the latest stabbing in Perth by Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw and ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess, who heads Australia’s main domestic spy agency. country.
“I was told there was 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 attacks.
“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 would also like to commend the local Muslim community who had already reported the individual to the police,” Wadood added.
Some Muslim leaders have criticized Australian police for declaring last month’s church attack a terrorist act, but not a rampage two days earlier. Sydney Shopping Center during which six people were killed and a dozen injured. The 40-year-old attacker in the mall attack has been shot dead by police. Police have not yet revealed the man’s motive.
The attack on a church is only the third to be classified by Australian authorities as a terrorist act since 2018.
In December 2022, three Christian fundamentalists shot dead two police officers and a bystander in an ambush near the community of Wieambila in the state of Queensland. The shooters were later killed by police.
In November 2018, a Somali-born Muslim man stabbed three pedestrians in Melbourne’s city centre, killing one, before police shot him dead.
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