Four people have been injured in a shooting at Hornsby Mall, outside Westfield after police opened fire on a man carrying a knife. The 23-year-old man went missing from a psychiatric hospital yesterday and police were making efforts to find him. The man was wandering around the mall with a kitchen knife.
Witnesses say he was barefoot and appeared to be under the influence of alcohol. The man reportedly lunged at a female officer with a carving knife before she and a male officer shot him, leaving him with arm, thigh and abdomen wounds.
Shoppers quickly fled the scene but unfortunately fragments from the gunfire injured three female bystanders, leaving them with injuries to their lower limbs and abdomens. The three women aged between 60 and 82 years of age were taken to hospital and are all now in a stable condition.
“The officers each fired shots at the offender, he was injured several times,” said a NSW Police spokesman. “Unfortunately, some bystanders were also injured with bullets or fragments. All up we have four people injured.”
The assailant is under police guard in hospital and is in a stable condition. Assistant Police Commissioner Dennis Clifford has addressed the media and defends the officers’ use of guns. Despite other options such as a taser he cites it being a matter of “life and death” and needed to be resolved in “a matter of seconds.”
