Terrible attack in Auckland supermarket

The Herald reports:

A man has been fatally shot by police officers and shoppers are understood to have suffered life-threatening injuries in horrific scenes at a West Auckland supermarket this afternoon.

Emergency services responded to the New Lynn mall mid-afternoon, with multiple people being injured. The Herald has been told at least one person suffered a stab wound, while Newstalk ZB understands two people have been shot.

Four people have been taken to Auckland City Hospital’s emergency department. It is understood the patients are all status 1 – which is in an immediately life-threatening condition.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is being briefed on the incident.

Police confirmed that a man entered a New Lynn supermarket and injured multiple people.
Police have located the man and he has been shot.

He has died at the scene.

This seems foreign to New Zealand. A random shooting/stabbing in a supermarket is chilling. Many of us will be thinking, we could have been there. It seems worse in a lockdown where supermarkets are around the only place you can go to.

Thoughts are with the families and friends of those wounded, and the wider New Lynn community. Let’s just hope the victims survive, and that we gain some understanding of why this happened.

UPDATE:

The PM has stated that this was a terrorist attack. The individual is a Sri Lankan National who has been in NZ since 2011 and has been monitored by authorities since 2016. He is described as inspired by ISIS.

The Police were literally following him 24/7 and shot him within 60 seconds of the attack. Our thanks to the Police for their quick action.

There will be questions about how he was at large, considering he was known to be such a risk. The PM said they have tried everything within the law to reduce the risk from him.

Its terrible to have had this terror attack. Violent extremism should be condemned, no matter what the ideology is behind it. I will urge moderators to delete comments that can’t differentiate between Islam and ISIS, just as there is a big difference between Catholicism and the IRA.

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