It was a female police inspector who tracked down and neutralised Joel Cauchi, the man behind the deadly stabbing attack at Bondi Junction's Westfield Shopping Centre, one of Sydney's busiest shopping malls. She was alone and had no backup while confronting the stabber, reports said.
The valiant cop was identified as Inspector Amy Scott, who was at Bondi Junction conducting routine duties when the horrific incident unfolded. It was reportedly on the fifth floor of the shopping mall that Inspector Scott met the assailant and fatally shot him.
Amy Scott's heroics: What eyewitnesses said
Amy Scott was literally the first responder and kept a cool head amidst the panicking crowd. She interacted with the shoppers who directed her to the fifth floor of the shopping complex. WastING no time, the cop rushed and caught up with the 40-year-old attacker using inputs from the onlookers.
When Officer Scott spotted Joel Cauchi, she screamed "put it down", BBC quoted an eyewitness as saying. However, Cauchi instead raised his knife and charged at her -- forcing the police officer to pull the trigger.
READ HERE | 6 killed in stabbing spree, police rule out 'terrorism' after suspect shot dead
As Cauchi collapsed, Scott moved towards him and chucked the weapon, which was identified as a big knife away. Later, she proceeded to perform CPR on him, the report added. Confirming the development, the New South Wales Police told Reuters, "He turned around, pulled out a knife, she said 'put it down', he didn't and then she pulled the trigger and then she pulled the knife away and started doing CPR on him."
The head of the state's police force, Karen Webb, reportedly hailed Scott's "enormous courage" for "doing well under the circumstances". "If she didn't do it, he would've kept going ... she (has) done an awesome job and I'm proud of her," Webb added.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, meanwhile, said, "There is no doubt that she saved lives."
Australia mall stabbing spree
An assailant stabbed six people to death at a busy Sydney shopping centre on Saturday. New South Wales Police said Sunday that Joel Cauchi, 40, was responsible for the Saturday afternoon attack at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction, in the city’s eastern suburbs and not far from the world-famous Bondi Beach.
NSW Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke told reporters at a media conference on Sunday that Cauchi suffered from yet unspecified mental health issues and police investigators weren’t treating the attack as terrorism-related.
“We are continuing to work through the profiling of the offender but very clearly to us at this stage it would appear that this is related to the mental health of the individual involved,” Cooke said.
“There is still, to this point... no information we have received, no evidence we have recovered, no intelligence that we have gathered that would suggest that this was driven by any particular motivation - ideology or otherwise,” he added.
