As the attacker’s father opened up about his son’s long history of mental illness and grievances with women, police suggested on Monday that the man who fatally stabbed six people at a mall in Sydney’s beachfront neighborhood of Bondi may have targeted women specifically.
Joel Cauchi, forty, was seen wandering about the crowded Westfield Bondi Junction on Saturday while sporting a big knife. He was wearing shorts and an Australian national rugby league jersey. Like most of the 12 injured, including five of the six persons he killed, they were all female.
Inspector Amy Scott shot him to death when she approached him on the fifth level by herself following a chase across the shopping center.
The father of the attacker, Andrew Cauchi, expressed his shock to reporters on Monday and mentioned that his son had a lengthy history of mental health issues and issues with women.
He claimed in remarks cited by The Australian newspaper that “he wanted a girlfriend and he has no social skills and he was frustrated out of his brain.”
When Joel paid Andrew Cauchi a visit last year, Andrew claimed to have stolen five US army knives from Joel out of fear that he might be stabbed.
Hours before, senior police officers had announced that they were looking into the likelihood that the attacker had targeted women specifically.
“It appears to be a topic of interest that the perpetrator had targeted women and stayed away from men,” New South Wales state Police Commissioner Karen Webb told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“Don’t the videos speak for themselves? That’s definitely something we should look into. Authorities said there was no evidence that ideology served as a motivator.
The lone guy murdered in the incident was a 30-year-old security guard named Faraz Tahir. According to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Australia, to which he belonged, Tahir had arrived in Australia as a refugee from Pakistan last year.
Authorities on Monday identified Yixuan Cheng, a Chinese national studying in the nation, as the sixth victim.
The Premier of New South Wales, Chris Minns, disregarded new regulations that would permit private security guards to carry weapons, despite the government’s announcement on Monday of a A$18 million ($12 million) independent coronial inquest into the incident.
Day of sorrow
On Monday, hundreds of people flocked from all over the city to pay their respects to those slain, placing thousands of flowers and wreaths in a temporary monument outside the mall.
Paying their condolences at the grave, Wren Wyatt stated, “It’s shocking something like this could happen so close to home.”
“I’m still working on readjusting to daily life. I’ve taken today off in an effort to clear my mind,” she continued.
Wyatt claimed that on Saturday, when she was strolling by the mall, a throng of people rushed past her, yelling, and security ordered her to run.
After witnessing his oldest kid react fearfully to the news, David Spencer drove his two little sons over 50 kilometers to the west of the city to lay a wreath together.
The nation, home to around 27 million people, has some of the strictest gun and knife regulations in the world, making mass homicides uncommon.
In remembrance of the victims, the Australian national flag is flying at half-mast everywhere in the nation, including at Sydney’s Harbour Bridge and Parliament House. On Monday night, a black ribbon will be lighted atop the Sydney Opera House sails.
