Update: Here’s an Australian TV report on the incident from 7News (hat tip Vlad Tepes). There’s no information here beyond what’s found in the articles:
It’s around midnight in Sydney, so alert Australians may be hard to find at the moment. But here’s what I’ve been looking at in the very dissatisfying morning news reports:
A man is in custody after he set himself on fire and drove his flaming vehicle into Merrylands [Sydney] police station’s underground carpark.
No officers were injured in the car-bomb attack when the man rammed the vehicle into the carpark about 7pm.
And:
The man, who is said to be in his 60s and of Caucasian appearance, set himself on fire but the gas bottles did not explode after he rammed the vehicle into the underground carpark of Merrylands police station in western Sydney.
He is said to have initially tried to drive into the front of the police station, and claimed he had a bomb.
To summarize the very limited available facts:
The suspect is said to be “Caucasian-looking”. He has “a history of mental illness”, and “has no known links to terror groups”. The Police Commissioner says: “Initial inquiries suggest there are no links to any groups”.
AND: “The station had been recently fortified after receiving threats including letters threatening attacks on ‘non-Muslims’ and pictures of severed heads.”
Those are all indicators that this guy is a Muslim. There’s no name yet, and of course no photo.
I’m trying to stay current by doing a Google news search on “Merrylands” and refreshing it every once and a while.
If any of our Australian readers pick up any interesting details from local TV outlets or other media, please leave them in the comments.
Sources: The Daily Telegraph (Australian),
The Daily Mail
I’ve just sent out a ‘heads up’ to some seriously good guys down under but don’t expect to receive an answer until tomorrow morning my time as it’s still very early morning down there.
S III
Police are not treating this as a terrorist incident. Man under police guard at hospital with serious burns.
However the police are under the gun, so to speak, as an extraordinary revelation from the inquest into 2014’s Martin Place siege revels:
The police commander who held off ordering tactical officers to storm the Lindt cafe until after hostage Tori Johnson was killed has told an inquest gunman Man Haron Monis “had the same rights as anyone else”, prompting the victim’s mother to charge out of the courtroom, calling the officer “an absolute disgrace”. Then the police commander said he would do the same thing today …
“Every day I think of those three people lost their lives because of me. My decision,” the officer who cannot be named, said.
He was referring to Mr Johnson, who was shot dead by terrorist Man Monis, barrister Katrina Dawson, who died after being hit by fragments of police bullets, and Monis himself.
So maybe this Merrylands Police Station incident was just a citizen exercising his rights….
Their getting out of their minds in the land down under what kind of nutcases are we looking at?
The do not know who the driver is and are “keeping an open mind”.
The latest here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-22/merrylands-police-station-car-park-attacker-alone-nsw-police/7650882
Apparently the Czech national was working alone, they didn’t know why he rammed his car packed with LPG bottles into a police station and set himself alight, but elaborated that although he has serious mental issues there are no links to terrorism, although in the same breath they exclaim that they just don’t know why…
They’re quick to rule out one particular motive considering the man’s motives are such a mystery, kind of like how the Lindt Cafe debacle also had no links to terrorism…
The rumour mill is grinding on whilst the police look at motive (how about he wanted to blow up the police station) and the media look at the damaged door to the car park. Ooh. Latest word on the street is that his name is Zhurawel and he’s upset that his home was searched after Curtis Cheng was murdered outside the Parramatta Police Station. The police won’t release his name.
‘ he’s upset that his home was searched after Curtis Cheng was murdered outside the Parramatta Police Station. ‘
A tenuous connection with islam, nevertheless a connection. The plot thickens.
While looking at the Donald’s speech on ABC 24 around noon (Australian Time) I saw
a crawler which said a man had driven a burning car at the station security door.
“The STATION security door . . .” – I said to my daughter – “What did they mean – the railway station? What station?”. You must understand that the ABC in Australia is
Government funded and ultra ultra Leftist/Green and loves appeasement of terrorism.
It will never, ever, report a story straight. It is a joke. The only way one can ever
get the truth is through the Conservative blogs. (Andrew Bolt/Tim Blair/Pickering Post
(watch the language in that last one though – I like him!) Michael Smith News). The rest of the media are boot-licking and compliant other than (sometimes) The Australian newspaper which swings between the truth and its masters!
http://www.trunews.com/article/australian-terror-attack-in-the-making