2024 Bondi Junction stabbings

2024 Bondi Junction stabbings
Police and paramedics outside the shopping centre
Map indicating the location of the incident
Location	Bensone Boone , Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Coordinates	33°53′29″S 151°15′4″E
Date	13 April 2024 3:20pm – 4:00pm (AEST, UTC+10:00)
Attack type	Mass stabbing
Weapon	Knife
Deaths	7 (including the perpetrator)
Injured	11
Perpetrator	Joel Cauchi

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

Background

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.

Attack

According to the NSW Police Force, the suspect 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 at some shoppers with his weapon, while ignoring others. Several shoppers confronted the man barring his passage to certain areas. Phone video showed one man, later identified as a French construction worker, preventing the perpetrator from climbing an escalator to a higher floor by brandishing a bollard at him.

Tactical police entering the shopping centre to clear the complex

The stabbings began as the perpetrator moved through 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. Around 40 paramedics were deployed to the scene.

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 the incident, 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, NSW Assistant 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.

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. All six fatalities were adults, comprising five women and one man.

The deceased victims named to date are: Pikria Darchia, 55, (a tourist from Georgia); Ashlee Good, 38, (mother of the wounded baby); Dawn Singleton, 25; Faraz Ahmed Tahir, 30, (a security guard at the centre); and Jade Young, 47.

Perpetrator

On the morning after the stabbings, the perpetrator was identified as Joel Cauchi, a 40-year-old man from Toowoomba, Queensland, who travelled to Sydney in March 2024. His family contacted police after recognising Cauchi on the news. Police learned that Cauchi lived a transient lifestyle, he was not known to be employed and was effectively homeless. He was understood to be single with no children. Cauchi reportedly suffered from mental health issues and was first diagnosed as such at the age of 17, with investigators stating that he was believed to have been schizophrenic. Cauchi's mental health is understood to have declined in recent years. Queensland Police said that Cauchi had been known to them for the past four to five years, with their last recorded interaction with him being a "street check" over suspicious behaviour in December 2023.

Cauchi reportedly had advertised himself online as a male escort. Less than a week prior to the attack, he also 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 attacker 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 Toowoomba, 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, later confirmed to be in Waterloo, an inner-city suburb of Sydney. Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cooke said that police 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 Amy Scott 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. Queensland Premier Steven Miles offered full cooperation of his state's authorities in the investigation after it emerged that the perpetrator came from Queensland. Additional police were deployed in shopping centres in Queensland as a precaution.

Sympathies were expressed by Charles III, who is also the head of state of Australia, and Queen Camilla as well as the Prince and Princess of Wales, and Pope Francis.

North Melbourne Football Club players wore 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.

The family of Joel Cauchi said that they were “absolutely devastated”, adding that “Joel’s actions were truly horrific". They also said they had no issues with the police officer who shot Joel.

On the day after the stabbing, members of the public laid flowers near the shopping centre's entrance on Oxford Street in tribute to the victims, while volunteers were deployed to offer mental health support. Albanese requested that flags to be flown at half-mast on government buildings and establishments on 15 April as a sign of mourning.