New Zealand authorities were able to limit the damage of what they’re calling a “terrorist attack” in the country’s largest city Friday. The video above includes aftermath at the scene as well as a clip from New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden speaking after the attack.
It happened at an Auckland supermarket just before 3:00 p.m. local time. But well before the attack happened, Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said a police surveillance team and a specialist tactics group had followed the man from his home to the supermarket.
Prime Minister Ardern said the man was a Sri Lankan national who was inspired by the Islamic State group and was well known to the nation’s security agencies.
“This individual was under heavy surveillance as a consequence of concerns about his ideology,” Coster said.
While Arden said she had been personally briefed on the man in the past, he had not done anything that would’ve justified arresting him before the attack.
“Had he done something that would have allowed us to put him into prison, he would have been in prison,” Ardern said.
Although they were closely monitoring the man, the police surveillance team and a specialist tactics group had no specific reason to believe he would attack during that grocery store trip.
“He entered the store, as he had done before,” Coster said. “Surveillance teams were as close as they possibly could be to monitor his activity.”
However then “he obtained a knife from within the store,” Coster said. Witnesses said the man shouted “Allahu akbar” and started stabbing random shoppers.
“This random guy he just went ‘Allah Akbar’ and started stabbing these two ladies, white ladies in front of me,” an unnamed witness said. “He just started stabbing, he then went ‘Allah Akbar’ and then I just realized oh my God, I have to run.”
Six people were wounded, including three sent to an Auckland hospital in critical condition. According to Coster, once people started running and screaming, two police from the special tactics group rushed over.
“He was like, ‘I’m an undercover cop, get back, get back, I’m going to shoot him,’ and then I just stepped back and then he start bang like five, six shots, and he was lying on the floor,” another unnamed witness said.
The man died in the shooting. According to Arden, this all happened “within, I’m told, the space of roughly 60 seconds of the attack starting.”
