Key Sentence:
- New Zealand police shot and killed a “violent extremist” who stabbed and injured at least six people at a supermarket in Auckland.
- Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described the incident as a “terrorist attack” by a Sri Lankan under surveillance.
The foreignerJacinda Ardern is said to have been inspired by the Islamic State terrorist group. Prime Minister Ardern said he was killed within 60 seconds of the police attack. “What happened today is disgusting; it’s a shame that it went wrong,” Prime Minister Ardern said at a news conference on Friday afternoon.
Jacinda Ardern said the man, whose identity cannot be disclosed because of the repression order, arrived in New Zealand in October 2011 and became a person of national interest in 2016. He is under constant and intense scrutiny because of concerns about his ideology.
I asked why no action was taken against him before six people were injured.
“The reality is if you watch someone 24 hours a day, you can’t always be around them. Staff intervened as quickly as possible and prevented further injuries in this dire situation,” said Police Commissioner Andrew Coster.
A witness previously told Stuff NZ. It was a hysteria scene.
“[People] ran hysterically, just screaming, screaming, scared,” he said, adding that he saw an old man lying on the floor with stab wounds. Online video shows panicked shoppers exiting Countdown Supermarket at LynnMall New Lynn. Local reports said that three were critical of the six patients hospitalized, one in severe condition and two in moderate condition.
Kiri Hanifin, Countdown’s chief security officer, said he was “devastated by what happened at our Lynnmall store. We will be supporting the entire LynnMall team… Countdown Lynnmall will be closed until further notice.”