Four stabbed in knife attack

• Published date: 24 June 2022
• Publication title: Daily Post, The (Rotorua, New Zealand)

Waitematā district commander Superintendent Naila Hassan said the offender, who was in hospital after suffering moderate injuries, was stopped by members of the public — preventing the attack from “being a lot worse”

The offender was a local person and has been apprehended. He had randomly stabbed four members of the public who had suffered moderate injuries before being stopped by a person using a crutch, Hassan said.

“This offender was on the move, he was on foot, it started in Murrays Bay [where he stabbed members of the public], and he continued to walk through to Mairangi Bay.

“A number of members of the public were following him and eventually one of them intervened.”

The members of the public who had acted or helped had “acted with bravery”, Hassan said. The offender had “quite a large knife”.

This was a random attack and there was no indication it was a hate crime, she said.

The offender was in hospital and has been moderately injured. He will face charges, she confirmed.

From the first call for help to when the offender was apprehended was less than 10 minutes, she said.

A woman earlier told the Herald she had to run screaming and call for help after a man chased her off Murrays Bay Beach with a “big knife”.

She lived close to the beach and had stepped onto it to take her dog for a walk on their regular route when she noticed a man close to the water.

He turned and began approaching her and the woman at first thought he “wanted to chat”.

“I was wearing headphones and went to take the headphones off to talk to him because that’s what I thought he wanted,” she said.

However, there was something about the man that put the woman on edge, she said.

Then “he...