Bondi junction stabbing: NSW Premier Chris Minns on tragedy, pays tribute to bravery of cop, shoppers

NSW Premier Chris Minns has warned parents to monitor their children’s social media use as graphic footage circulates of the mass stabbing at Westfield in Bondi Junction on platforms including TikTok.

Earlier Mr Minns said the massacre that killed six victims and left 12 injured was “one of the worst acts we’ve ever seen” as he paid tribute to “men and women that stood up” and saved many lives on Saturday afternoon.

Horrifying vision of assailant Joel Cauchi wielding a knife inside the shopping complex as well as footage of bloody and injured shoppers is widely circulating on platforms including TikTok.

Mr Minns said parents needed to be vigilant and use “absolute discretion” and said footage was the crime scene would be “incredibly confronting”.

“For parents right now, it’s particularly important to be vigilant about what your kids are consuming on social media because there is unfiltered, unedited, graphic imagery on social media at the moment,” he said.

“Once you see it, it’s not possible to erase from your memory.”

Cauchi entered the Westfield shopping complex just after 3pm on Saturday wielding a long knife before he began stabbing shoppers, killing six people including five women. At least 12 people were injured, including a nine-month-old baby and nine women.

Acknowledging there would be many questions and widespread anger in the community, Mr Minns said the only “silver lining” was the “instinctive bravery” of people such as hero cop Amy Scott, who saved “many lives” when she took down the attacker.

“Sydney has suffered a horrifying and violent attack on innocent people who were doing something everybody does on the weekend and that is going shopping with their family and their friends,” he said.

“The individual stories of those who’ve been killed, the complete strangers rushing in to help, as well as acts of courage and bravery mean that whether you know the individuals who’ve been killed or not, you’re grieving today, and the entire state will have to get behind those families in the days ahead as they recover and they go through the inevitable grief associated with such a horrifying, horrifying event.

“We will do everything we can to ensure that we’ve got accurate information that’s presented to the people of New South Wales to prevent acts like this from happening again.

“I can understand, that incircumstances like this many in the community will feel real anger. We’ll have to process that grief in the days ahead.

He thanked frontline responders and “the ordinary members of the public that cornered and confronted a murderer in the Westfield Shoppingtown shopping centre, showing what I would call instinctive bravery under terrible circumstances”.

“Inspector Amy Scott, who ran towards danger, showed professionalism and bravery and without a shadow of the doubt, saved many, many lives in the last 24 hours.”

Mr Minns said the state would “come together”.

“We’ll recover. It’s going to be a very difficult few days and those families no doubt have gone through hell. But there’s eight million people in this state that are behind them. Everybody’s grieving as a result of this and they’re not alone,” he said.