The following comments can be attributed to Murdoch University Associate Professor of Criminology Mark Briskey:
“The youth of the attacker is not surprising, and apart from his alleged previous criminal history (e.g. for concealed knife possession) there are impulse issues for young males – remember Farhad Jabbar, the 15-year-old male shot dead by NSW Police security out the front of the Ferguson building after he had murdered NSW Police Accountant Curtis Cheng?” he said.
“Additionally, we can draw motivational similarities from Jake Ballardi (18), a Victorian teenager killed in Iraq (self-radicalised online) and Numan Haider (18), who was shot dead by Victoria Police after a knife attack in which he stabbed an AFP officer and quite a number of other cases involving teenage males and/or young adults.
“And it is not only radicalised Muslim youth – we have had a number of arrests of radicalised Far Right youth and young men.”
