A “radicalized” and mentally ill 16-year-old boy was shot dead by police on Saturday night in the suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, after injuring a person in a knife attack, police said. authorities reported Sunday.
The teenager, armed with a knife, “rushed” on the police and was fatally shot by an agent, said the Prime Minister of the State of Western Australia Roger Cook during a press conference.
“There are indications that he was radicalized online. But I want to reassure people that at this stage it appears he acted alone.”said Mr. Cook.
Police received a call Saturday evening from a man warning he was going to commit “acts of violence” but without giving his name or location, the head of the state police, Col Blanch, told journalists.
A few minutes later, he added, police received an emergency call warning them that a “man with a knife was running” at a car park in Willetton, in the southern suburbs of Perth.
The individual was armed with a 30 centimeter long kitchen knife and according to images from a police body camera, the teenager refused to put it on the ground as requested by the police. order, Mr. Blanch said.
The officers fired two stun guns, but “neither of them had completely the desired effect”he said.
“The man continued to advance toward (an officer) with a gun who fired a single shot and fatally injured him.” the individual, said the police official. The teenager died in hospital later that night.
“Online radicalization”
The man “middle-aged” injured by a single stab wound during the attack is in “serious” but stable condition, the police official said.
Police believe the teenager sent messages to members of the Muslim community, who immediately notified police, he said without disclosing information about their content.
The teenager had “mental health problems, but also problems of online radicalization”according to the same Source.
In recent years, the attacker was monitored as part of a program to combat violence and extremism.
“This is not an approach based on the criminal dimension, it is a program aimed at helping individuals who express ideologies of concern to our community”explained Mr. Blanch.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese explained that he had been kept informed of the facts by the police and the intelligence services according to which there was no “ongoing threat”.
“We are a nation committed to peace and there is no place for violent extremism in Australia”wrote Mr. Albanese on social networks.
Three violent attacks in a few weeks in Australia
Violent crime is rare in Australia, but this incident comes less than a month after another stabbing attack which left six people dead in a shopping center in Sydney (south-east).
The perpetrator of this attack, Joel Cauchi, a 40-year-old man suffering from mental illness, was shot dead by the police. His parents said their son was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 17, then left their home in Queensland (north-east) and abandoned treatment.
Two days after this attack in a shopping center, a bishop of an Assyrian church was also stabbed during a sermon broadcast live in a Sydney church. The victim survived his injuries. A 16-year-old boy has since been charged with“terrorist act”.
