Western Australian police shot and killed a “radicalised” 16-year-old boy with a knife who had wounded a member of the public in Perth, police and the state premier said on Sunday.
The teenager “rushed” at police after wounding someone and was fatally shot by an officer, Premier Roger Cook told a news conference.
“There are indications he had been radicalised online. But I want to reassure the community at this stage it appears he acted solely and alone.”
Police had received a call late on Saturday from a male warning that he was going to commit “acts of violence” but without giving his name or location, the state’s police commissioner, Col Blanch, told reporters.
Within minutes another emergency call alerted police that a “male with a knife was running around the car park” in Willetton, a southern suburb of Perth, he said.
‘You are my son, I love you’: stabbed Sydney bishop forgives attacker
‘You are my son, I love you’: stabbed Sydney bishop forgives attacker
Police body camera images showed the teenager refused officers’ demands that he put down the knife, the police chief said.
Officers fired two tasers at him but “both of them did not have the full desired effect,” he said.
“The male continued to advance on the third officer with a firearm who fired a single shot and fatally wounded the male.”
The attack had “hallmarks” of terrorism but was yet to be declared a terrorist act, police said.
The teenager died in hospital later in the night, he said.
The incident comes after New South Wales police last month charged several boys with terrorism-related offences in investigations following the stabbing of an Assyrian Christian bishop while he was giving a live-streamed sermon in Sydney on April 15.
The attack on the bishop came only days after a deadly mass stabbing in the Sydney beachside suburb of Bondi that claimed the lives of six people.
Gun and knife crime is rare in Australia, which consistently ranks among the safest countries in the world, according to the federal government.
Additional reporting by Reuters