Australian police fatally shoot man who stabbed seven around shopping mall in South Hedland

PERTH: Australian police fatally shot a man who stabbed and slashed seven people at and near a shopping mall on Friday, officials said. None of the victims of the rampage in the northwest coastal town of South Hedland suffered life-threatening injuries.

Officials said that five were hospitalised with stab wounds, including two who remain in serious but stable condition. Police have not revealed a motive. Western Australia state Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said that there was no indication the assailant, aged in his 30s, was politically or ideologically motivated.

The assailant first stabbed a man at a motel near the mall and then another man who was sitting in a car at a nearby fast food restaurant, police said. He then knifed two men and three women at the mall, including a woman pushing a baby carriage. The child was not injured.

Two police officers Tasered the man but he still lunged at them with the knife, Dawson said. A policeman fired several shots and killed him, he said. Nearby Port Hedland exports iron ore, and the suspect was a member of the mining work force who commute by plane 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) from the state capital, Perth.