Australian man, 16, shot dead after injuring person in knife attack

The man injured in the attack is in “serious” but stable condition, according to police.

A 16-year-old boy was shot dead by police in the suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, after injuring a person in a knife attack, the local government chief and police said. Sunday May 5. The police had received a call the previous evening from a man warning that he was going to commit “acts of violence”but without giving his name or location, explained the chief of police of the state of Western Australia, Col Blanch.

A few minutes later, the 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. During the attack, the teenager injured a man “middle-aged”which is in a state “severe” but stable.

The young person would have been “radicalized online”

The police intervened and, according to images from an officer’s body-worn camera, the suspect refused to put his knife on the ground as requested by the police, Col Blanch said. The officials first used two stun guns, but “neither of them had completely the desired effect”. “The man continued to walk towards [un agent] armed with a firearm who fired a single shot and fatally wounded” the individual, detailed Col Blanch. The teenager died in hospital later that night.

“There are indications that he was radicalized online. But I want to reassure people that at this stage it appears he acted alone.”, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook said at a press conference. The police chief confirmed that this 16-year-old had “mental health problems, but also problems of online radicalization”. In recent years, he had participated in 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 Col Blanch.

The attack comes less than a month after a bishop of an Assyrian church was stabbed during a live-streamed sermon in Sydney. The victim survived his injuries. A 16-year-old boy has since been charged in this case, “terrorist act”.