Bondi Junction stabbings

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2024 Bondi Junction stabbings
Police and paramedics outside the shopping centre
Map indicating the location of the incident
Location	Bondi Junction, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Coordinates	33°53′29″S 151°15′4″E
Date	13 April 2024 c. 3:45 pm (AEST, UTC+10:00)
Attack type	Mass stabbing
Deaths	7 (including the perpetrator)
Injured	11
Perpetrator	Joel Cauchi
Motive	Unknown

The 2024 Bondi Junction stabbings also known as the Bondi Junction Massacre was a mass stabbing that occurred on 13 April 2024 when a 40-year-old man, Joel Cauchi, stabbed multiple people indiscriminately in the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre in the suburb of Bondi Junction in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Six of the victims, five women and one man, died from their injuries. Several other people were injured, including a nine-month-old baby. The perpetrator was fatally shot by a senior police officer.

Background

Main article: Westfield Bondi Junction

Westfield Bondi Junction is a major shopping centre in Sydney's eastern suburbs. It is the fourth biggest shopping centre in New South Wales. At the time of the attack, the centre was filled with hundreds of visitors on a Saturday afternoon, the first day of the inter-term school holidays.

Mass casualty attacks are a rare occurrence in Australia, with the most recent prior attack occurring in 2019, where four people were killed and one injured in a mass shooting in Darwin. The attack was the deadliest in Australia since the January 2017 Melbourne car attack.

Attack

According to the NSW Police Force, the suspect first entered Westfield Bondi Junction at around 3:10 pm AEST wearing a sports jersey, allegedly leaving the centre before returning 10 minutes later with a knife. Eyewitnesses said that he was behaving erratically, and video clips from security cameras and bystanders filming showed the perpetrator lunging out at some shoppers with his weapon, while ignoring others. Several shoppers confronted the man, barring his passage to certain areas.

Tactical police entering the shopping centre to clear the complex

The stabbings began as the perpetrator moved across 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.

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

Casualties

Paramedics outside the shopping centre waiting to treat injured victims

At 6:15 pm, Assistant NSW 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. All six fatalities were adults, including five women and a man, who was a security guard. The victims' ages ranged from 20 to 55.

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 to be in a critical condition.

The deceased victims named to date were Ashlee Good, 38, (mother of the wounded baby) and Dawn Singleton, 25. Others killed were a woman from Bellevue Hill, two visitors from overseas and a male security guard.

Perpetrator

On the morning after the stabbings, the perpetrator was named as Joel Cauchi, a 40-year-old man from Toowoomba, Queensland who relocated to Sydney in March 2024. He reportedly suffered from mental health issues, with investigators stating that he was believed to have been schizophrenic.

Less than a week prior to the attack, the perpetrator had 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 suspect 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 Brisbane, 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. NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cooke also said that they had not received evidence that the attack was “driven by any particular motivation – ideology or otherwise”, adding that Cauchi suffered from mental health issues.

Reactions

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 the police inspector who shot the assailant 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. Minns later added that Queensland Premier Steven Miles offered full cooperation of his state's authorities in the investigation after it emerged that the perpetrator came from Queensland.

Charles III stated that he and Queen Camilla were "utterly shocked and horrified" by the "senseless attack" and expressed sympathies for "the families and loved ones of those who have been so brutally killed". The Prince and Princess of Wales issued a statement on X expressing grief over the event while also praising the "heroic emergency responders who risked their own lives to save others".

North Melbourne Football Club announced that its players would wear 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.

Pope Francis said that he “was deeply saddened” over the attack in a telegram addressed to the Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Colin Fisher.