Australian police shoot dead ‘radicalised’ teenager after knife attack in Perth

Western Australian police shot and killed a “radicalised” 16-year-old boy with a knife who stabbed a man in a Perth car park, police and the state premier said on Sunday.

The teenager “rushed” at police who responded by shooting him twice with tasers before firing a single fatal shot, they said.

“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,” Premier Roger Cook said.

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.

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 teenager died in hospital later in the night, he said.

The attack had “hallmarks” of terrorism but was yet to be declared a terrorist act, police said.

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The “middle-aged” man who was stabbed was in a “serious” but stable condition and appeared to be doing well, the police commissioner said.

The boy had “mental issues but also online radicalisation issues”, he said.

The attacker had for the past couple of years been part of a “countering violence extremism programme” for people who show signs of