Australian police said today they are investigating the motives of a man who fatally stabbed six people and injured 12 others at a shopping center in a Sydney suburb on Saturday, saying he appeared to have mainly targeted women.
Five of the six victims of Joel Causti, a 40-year-old man who suffered from mental health problems, were women, as were most of the 12 people he injured.
“It’s clear to me and it’s clear to the investigators that this is a point of interest: the attacker focused on women and avoided men,” New South Wales Police Superintendent Karen Webb told Australian state broadcaster ABC.
“The videos speak for themselves, don’t they? It is certainly a key element of research for us,” he added.
Videos posted on social media show the gunman going after mostly women during his attack at the busy Westfield shopping center in the Sydney suburb of Bodai Junction on Saturday.
But Webb stressed that police cannot know what was going through the attacker’s mind. “That’s why it’s important that investigators have time to take statements from those who knew him,” he explained.
On his Facebook profile, Joel Cauchi mentions that he comes from Toowoomba, a town near Brisbane. His parents said he had suffered from mental health problems since he was a teenager.
The sixth victim has been identified
The last of the six victims of this attack was identified today as Yishuang Cheng, a young Chinese student at the University of Sydney.
The other women killed were a stylist, a volunteer lifeguard, the daughter of a businessman and a young mother, whose nine-month-old baby is in hospital with serious injuries.
The mother, 38-year-old Ashley Good, gave her bloodied daughter to strangers before she was taken to hospital where she succumbed to her injuries.
The only man killed in the attack was a 30-year-old Pakistani, Faraz Tahri, who had arrived in Australia a year ago as a refugee and worked for the mall’s security service.
Eight people injured in the attack are still being treated, some in critical condition. The four others have been released from hospital.
The attack lasted half an hour before a female police officer, Amy Scott, was able to chase down and kill the assailant.
Joel Cauchi’s parents called their son’s actions “truly horrific” and said they support the victims. “We are still trying to understand what happened,” they wrote in a statement.
They also sent a message to the policewoman who killed their son. “She did her duty to protect others and we hope she is OK.”
According to police, Cauchi arrived in Sydney a month ago and had rented a small warehouse where he had put some of his personal belongings, including a surfboard. He had no permanent residence, lived in a car and in hostels, while he had sporadic contact with his family.
Heavy mourning
Passers-by have left thousands of flowers and wreaths outside the mall, while flags fly at half-mast across the country. The Sydney Opera House will be lit up with a black ribbon tonight.
AAP Image/Flavio Brancaleone via Reuters
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had spoken to the families of several victims. “The gender of the victims is certainly a matter of concern,” he told ABC radio, promising the police investigation would be “exhaustive”.
Albanese also criticized the spread of fake news through social networking sites. Some users mistakenly said it was a terrorist act, while an Australian television network was forced to apologize for identifying a 20-year-old student as the perpetrator of the attack.
SOURCE: APE-ME
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