At least four people were injured in a stabbing attack at a New Zealand supermarket Monday, authorities said.
Two staff members at the Countdown supermarket in Dunedin were among those injured by the alleged attacker, who was taken into custody, police said, according to the Guardian.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said a motive had yet to be determined, but it didn’t appear to be an act of domestic terrorism.
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Police officers are observed standing guard outside the main entrance of the Dunedin Central Countdown on May 10, 2021, in Dunedin, New Zealand. (Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images)
“There is nothing to suggest, from the police’s perspective, that this is what they would define as a domestic terror event,” Ardern told reporters.
New Zealand Police Superintendent Paul Basham told reporters that he believed it was a random attack. He said police arrived to find that shoppers had detained the man believed to have been responsible.
“This was a fast-moving and extremely traumatic event for every person in the supermarket – for the victims who were stabbed, for those who were present who tried to intervene, and those who had to flee to a place of safety,” Basham said.
“While we are satisfied we have the person responsible in our custody, we are in the very early stages of our investigation into the circumstances,” he added, according to the Guardian.
The victims are at the hospital along with the alleged attacker, who is under police guard, Reuters reported.
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Countdown Supermarkets also released a statement on Facebook, saying it was “shocked and devastated by the events in our Dunedin Central Store this afternoon.”
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“Our priority right now is our injured team members and caring for our wider team in the wake of this extremely traumatic event,” the statement added. “We are deeply upset that customers who tried to help our team members were also injured.”
