Jakarta –
Police in Western Australia have shot a 16-year-old boy after he stabbed a man in a Perth car park. The teenager attacked the police who was then shot dead on the spot.
“There are signs that he has been radicalized online. “But I want to reassure the public that at this stage it seems to be working on its own,” said Western Australian Premier Roger Cook, reported by AFP, Sunday (5/5/2024) .
The police received a report on Saturday night from a man who warned him that he would commit an ‘act of violence’. The state police commissioner, Colonel Blanch, told reporters that the alert was mentioned without giving a name or location.
Within minutes, another emergency call told police there was “a man with a knife running around the car park” in Willetton, a suburb south of Perth.
The police chief said that video footage showed that the teenager refused officers’ requests to put down the knife. The knife carried by the perpetrator was 30 centimeters long.
The officers then fired two Tasers at him but did not stop the attacker. Until finally the police opened fire.
“The man continued to attack the third officer with a firearm who fired one shot and fatally wounded the man,” the police chief said.
The teenager died in hospital later that night.
The stabbing victim himself was seriously injured. The police commissioner said the man’s condition appeared to be good. The victim suffered a two centimeter stab wound which may have affected his lung.
The police believe that the teenager sent “appropriate messages” to several members of the Muslim community who called the police immediately, he said, without giving details about the messages.
The boy is suspected of having mental problems and also a problem with online radicalism.
“For the past two years, the attacker had been part of a ‘violent counter-terrorism program’ for people who showed signs of ‘religious or cause-motivated’ concerns,” he said.
“This is not an approach based on crime but this is a program to help individuals who express ideologies that disturb our community. But maybe they didn’t no crime,” he continued.
The Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, said that he had received information from the police and intelligence agencies saying that there was no ‘ongoing threat’.
“We are a peace-loving nation and there is no place for violent extremism in Australia,” he said in a message on social media.
See also Video: Second when a man in Jambi stabbed his friend to fight over a parking space
(bld/idn)
2024-05-05 08:31:13
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