- Australia: A dead woman and another injured in a knife attack in downtown Sydney
"We ran in the opposite direction to the people, who fled in terror from the place. When my brother saw that there was a man with a bloody knife, we only thought of helping." Paul O'Shaughnessy, his brother Luke and Lee Cuthbert, the three of Manchester, are the undisputed heroes of the knife attack that has killed a woman and left several injured on Tuesday in Sydney (Australia).
"We were working on the fourth floor of a building. My brother Luke looked out the window and saw a man in balaclava, armed with a knife and covered in blood that was clearly not his. We went down immediately and ran towards him. He was shouting words in Arabic and under the influence of some substance, "37-year-old former Bury club footballer Paul O'Shaughnessy , after the event, told Skynews.
The three Britons were at that moment in their jobs, in a hiring company. "At that time you don't think. I don't know if it was the instinct, but we just wanted to reduce it so it wouldn't hurt more people," said Paul O'Shaughnessy, who said that "the real hero has been his brother Luke," - Thai boxing champion - who managed to immobilize the aggressor until the police arrived by placing a box and a chair on his head.
Australian police have congratulated the men who, along with other passers-by, managed to catch and reduce the 21-year-old attacker and suffer from some kind of mental illness, until he was arrested by the authorities. The head of the New South Wales Police, Gavin Wood , has stressed to the media that "those who managed to physically reduce the attacker are very brave people, true heroes."
Australian Police and Emergency Services Minister David Elliott has also praised the British: "The city celebrates tonight that it has three new heroes."
The country's prime minister, Scott Morrison, has expressed concern about the attack, expressed his condolences to the victims and praised the rapid action of civilians. "The aggressor has been arrested thanks to the courageous action of those present at the scene who managed to contain him," he tweeted.
In an interview with 'The Guardian', Paul O'Shaughnessy told what went through his mind when confronting the attacker: "In our heads we said to each other, 'Be careful, be careful', and ask the witnesses present: 'What do you have? Is there anything else?' "No, it's just a knife ." That made us push further to reduce it, because if we didn't carry a gun we could do it. So we went straight to him, there was already a boy facing him and we just all jumped on the boy. "
In the shocking images of the man's arrest, the police are heard shouting: "Shoot me. Shoot me in the fucking head. I want to die."
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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