‘Enormous courage’: Hero police officer who ended the Bondi stabbing rampage

As panicked shoppers fled Westfield Bondi Junction and an alarm sounded, a lone female police officer ran towards the man armed with a knife who had engaged in a stabbing spree.

As she approached, the man refused to drop the blade that he was brandishing, described by witnesses as a large kitchen knife.

An image circulated on social media showed the police inspector attending to the attacker after shooting him.

“All she said was: ‘Put it down.’ Just once. Then she shot him in the chest and he went down,” witness Jason Dixon said.

The officer had no choice but to shoot, he said. “She had to shoot him because he just kept coming. He had a knife and he wasn’t going to stop.

“He was advancing at her and he was running, coming to get someone else,” Dixon told The Daily Telegraph.

“I’m glad she got him because if she didn’t he would have stabbed her too.”

The officer is a high-ranking inspector at the local police district, the Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command, who has been in the job for more than a decade. NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said the officer “showed enormous courage and bravery”.

NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cooke said the officer confronted the offender on level five of the shopping centre.

“As she continued to walk quickly behind him to catch up with him, he turned, faced her, raised a knife. She discharged a firearm and that person is now deceased,” he said.

Seconds after the man crumpled to the flood, confronting vision from the scene shows the heroic officer and another uniformed police officer dragging the man away from the glass wall of the Eckersley art supply shop, and beginning CPR.

NSW Ambulance officers took over the man’s care after he was shot, but he died at the scene.

In 2019, Scott was recognised by the Rotary Club of Kings Cross in 2019, when she won the Demonstrated Courage and Devotion to Duty award.

The officer is “doing well under the circumstances”, Webb said.

“She showed enormous courage and bravery. She will need to be interviewed formally. We just talked about [if] she’s OK, her family is OK. She will be interviewed tomorrow,” Webb said on Saturday night.

The officer was alone when she confronted the man, which, Webb said, “is not unusual, for a senior officer to be out supervising and leading troops”.

If you or anyone you know needs help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 (and see lifeline.org.au) or Beyond Blue on1300 22 4636 (and see beyondblue.org.au).

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