Bondi Junction, in Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs, is well known to many British backpackers and tourists. Close to the city’s most famous beaches, it is where locals and visitors go to shop, enjoy the many cafes, or catch the train to town.
The sprawling Westfield shopping complex there is a popular place. This Saturday afternoon, a pleasant autumn day, it was filled with shoppers, and people catching up with friends over coffee or just passing the time.
None of them would have expected a rampage by a seemingly ordinary man, dressed in an Australian rugby league team jersey and shorts, wielding a knife. ‘He looked like a man on a mission’, an eyewitness said. What that mission was, no one yet knows.
After just a few minutes, five people were dead, and another soon died in hospital. Four others were seriously injured and are fighting for their lives, including a nine-month old baby whose mother is among the dead.
As the man menacingly roamed the floors of the centre, there was panic and confusion. But there was bravery too, as some staff and visitors attempted to stop the man and keep him at bay until police arrived. Others risked themselves to help the dying and wounded.
When police came shortly after, the man was courageously confronted by a lone female police inspector. She told him to put the knife down. When he refused, she shot and mortally wounded him. She them attempted CPR but could not revive him.
The 40-year-old assailant has not yet been publicly identified. Sydney police have said, however, that he is known to them, that they are satisfied he acted alone, and that the murderous rampage was not ideologically motivated.
It may not have been a terrorist act, but it was a random act of terror. Six people left home on Saturday afternoon, never to return. More are fighting for their lives. Still more have had their own lives and happiness upended and destroyed randomly by a lone man, merely because their loved ones were out enjoying themselves or doing their shopping.
Those suffering tonight and left in the murderer’s wake may never know the answer that matters most: why this happened.
Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and other national and state leaders, expressed their shock and sorrow. But nothing will bring back the dead. On Sky News Australia, one of the journalists knew the mother – now named as 38-year-old Ash Good – who was killed. She said, ‘She is just an incredible person…she was so excited to be a new mother, and it’s all just been ripped away this afternoon.’
Random death out of the blue on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Sydney. So incomprehensible. So unfair. So wrong.
Comments