The terror of the Sydney stabbings is because it took place in the most ordinary of settings. It could have happened to any of us. ANGELA MOLLARD’s release from Sydney – and the attack that has shaken Australia to its core
Autumn in Sydney is the best time of the year, so it’s no surprise that Ashlee Good had an idyllic Saturday.
As she walked into the sunshine with baby daughter Harriet in her arms, she realized she was wearing exactly the same clothes she had worn nine months earlier when she was still heavily pregnant. She took a photo and uploaded it to Instagram along with the photo she had taken last July shortly before she went into labour. ‘9 months in vs 9 months out’, she captioned the happy photos.
And then, because it really was a great day, with the surf pumping down the road at Bondi Beach and the smell of barbecued sausages wafting from the children’s feet and the clarity of the light that makes all of us who live here think it’s the best. place in the world, Ashlee also uploaded a cute video of adorable Harriet sitting in her car seat and nibbling on a piece of bread. As the sun’s rays danced on the little girl’s face, the song My Girl by The Temptations played in the background.
For years to come, these photos—proud moments captured by a loving mother—will mean more than Ashlee could have ever imagined. Just hours later, mother and daughter were stabbed in the horrific attack at the Westfield shopping center in Sydney’s Bondi Junction. With blood pouring from her wounds, the stricken mother’s last act was to reach into the pram to scoop up Harriet, who had been stabbed in the stomach, and thrust her into the arms of two men. In shock, and with her life ebbing, all that mattered to the 38-year-old osteopath was that her beloved only child was safe.
Ashlee Good, the 38-year-old who died while trying to protect her daughter Harriet
As baby Harriet fights for her life after surgery, with her father, Dan Flanagan, at her bedside, the terrifying thing about the stabbing that killed six and left several others in a critical condition is that it happened in the most ordinary and relatable of settings.
We all act together. We send our teenage children off to Saturday jobs at Sephora or McDonald’s or to make tea in the hair salons of these huge retail centers. We give our youngsters their first taste of independence by letting them hike with their friends.
Or, as I did that afternoon at another Westfield when the stabbing frenzy took place on the other side of the harbour, we part and agree to meet half an hour later. “Love the nail colour,” I said to my daughter as I left her for a manicure while returning a shirt to TK Maxx. It is unthinkable that in the simplest, most prosaic moments I could have waved goodbye to her forever.
The stories from Saturday are hard to process because it is a tragedy that could have happened to any of us. Those killed were not in a war zone. They were not in an American school where random killings are the sad consequence of weak gun laws. They weren’t in a skyscraper or at a concert, where cowardly killers know they can do the most damage. Rather, they happened in a shopping mall in the middle of scenes so ordinary they could play out anywhere in the world. A father takes his children shopping for gifts for their mother’s birthday. A mother sends her 11-year-old son back to Woolworths to grab a supermarket item she had forgotten. Teens are marking the first day of fall school vacation by trying out Selena Gomez’s new blusher range.
And then into that ease, that normality, comes a handful, a movement out of the corner of the eye that doesn’t match the rhythms and routines of shopping. Some see a man with a knife. They start running. Others freeze. A shopper would later say she felt a sharp pain in her back. Only later will she learn that it came from a knife. And then there is the panic. Is there one striker? What if there is more? And what if there is a bomb? It was just six years ago that this city suffered the horrific siege at the Lindt cafe, where an Islamic State-inspired gunman believed to be carrying a bomb held 18 hostages for 17 hours. Two lost their lives.
Police continue to investigate the scene of the mass stabbing at Sydney’s Bondi Junction, which left six dead and several others in a critical condition
On Saturday, most people ran into stores, where staff ran to push down the aluminum roller doors to keep them inside safely. Some hid in bathrooms or stairwells. And because there are multiple levels at this flagship Westfield, some grabbed their phones to record the pandemonium unfolding on the floor below. It’s these videos, of the knifeman walking towards shoppers and being confronted on an escalator by a hero with a bollard, that brings the danger home to us like never before. Social media deals with a lot of criticism, but it also tells the real-time story of the world we live in.
It also gave us the astonishing bravery displayed by a senior female police officer. Inspector Amy Scott was working alone that afternoon when she heard reports of a man with a knife. Footage shows her sprinting through the mall, followed by a bystander who had grabbed a chair as a potential weapon. When she came up behind the attacker, later identified as 40-year-old Joel Cauchi, she shouted at him to put the knife down. He didn’t. So she shot him in the chest.
Westfield Bondi Junction covers 1,412,860 square feet. It boasts 331 stores spread over seven floors. There are gyms and cinemas and 3304 parking spaces below. It’s a village within a village, offering Chanel for the wealthy and sushi bars for surfers who come in barefoot from the iconic beach just over a kilometer away. My older daughter lives in the area and was shopping there the day before. Her friends were at the center Saturday. They heard the gun shot and hid in a store.
Dawn Singleton was two years ahead of my daughter at the same high school. She is the daughter of one of Australia’s best-known businessmen, John Singleton. On Saturday, 25-year-old Dawn went shopping in Westfield for make-up for her upcoming wedding to childhood sweetheart Ashley Wildey. Ashley is a police officer in New South Wales and had finished her shift before the attack but was recalled to duty as police struggled to deal with the crisis.
He arrived at Westfield Bondi Junction unaware that Dawn, who had only bought her wedding dress last week, was inside. As a source told the Daily Telegraph: ‘He had arrived at Westfield when officers realized his fiancee was one of the victims.’ He was taken from the scene to be comforted by family and friends. With the mall still a crime scene 24 hours later, neither he nor Dawn’s parents had been able to formally identify the body by Sunday afternoon.
Among the other victims was architect and mother-of-two Jade Young, who was yesterday remembered at the Bronte Surf Club, where she was a much-loved member. Also killed were 30-year-old security guard Faraz Tahir, a Pakistani refugee who came to Australia a year ago, and 55-year-old local woman Pikria Darchia.
With 3,000 cars still parked under the mall on Sunday morning, the pressing question was why? Initial fears that the attacker was Jewish or Muslim were quickly quelled. Joel Cauchi was a man with a mental illness. He had never been arrested or charged with a crime but was ‘street checked’ by officers on the Gold Coast in December. Police believe he was living with schizophrenia and using drugs, including methamphetamine and psychedelics.
People, including emergency workers, have left flowers opposite the crime scene in memory of those who lost their lives
Somehow, combined with the setting, it makes the attack even more pointless. How do you protect yourself when tragedy can strike anywhere, anytime? Is it safe to buy winter socks? A new TV? Diapers for your baby? And what do you do if something happens? Today I have discussed with my daughters where it is best to hide, whether to run, whether to help, and what traumas you can experience from seeing events like those that took place on Saturday.
But along with this horrible barbarism came the best of humanity. Much praise has gone to ‘Bollard Man’, Ukrainian Silas Despreaux, who fought off the attacker with a bollard, preventing him from entering a play area where dozens of young children were playing. Silas, who moved to Sydney from Ukraine three years ago, works as a handyman. “He’s OK, just shaken up,” said a friend. ‘He says he’s no hero, he’s just an ordinary guy.’
And then there’s the father who appeared to have grabbed eye masks from a store so he could place them over his young children’s eyes to protect them from the carnage as they exited the mall. If horror comes in the most unlikely of places, so does common sense. Psychological scars can run deep.
We are grateful that the King and Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales sent messages. Companionship, community, Commonwealth – they mean something, as the family of Ashlee Good so eloquently expressed in the hours after her death. Little Harriet, with her strawberry blonde hair and big eyes, was doing well after lengthy surgery, they said. And while they were grieving the terrible loss of ‘a beautiful mother, daughter, partner, friend, all round excellent human being’, they also wanted to thank the two men who held and cared for Harriet when Ashlee could not. The little girl will grow up without her mother, but as Ashlee’s adorable photos attest, she was never so deeply loved.