ASIO boss Mike Burgess said on Monday that “individuals are moving to violence with little or no warning and little or no planning”.
“Acts of violence can be almost spontaneous or purely reactive,” he said, warning that teens were increasingly getting caught up in extremism.
CCTV captured an image of a person matching the teenager’s description walking past a nearby shop after the alleged stabbing.
“In the recent cases, the oldest [alleged] perpetrator was 21 and the youngest was 14. Extremist ideologies, conspiracies, misinformation, are flourishing in the online ecosystem and young Australians are particularly vulnerable.”
CCTV captured an image of a person matching the 14-year-old’s description nearby after the alleged stabbing nursing what appeared to be an injured hand.
Police said he had been receiving mental health treatment since the alleged stabbing.
The destruction of property charges arise from incidents in which police allege the teenager set fire to several bins at two locations in Sydney’s inner west on July 1.
In the wake of the University of Sydney stabbing, it was revealed the 14-year-old boy had threatened to carry out a mass shooting less than a year before the incident, but these charges were dropped on mental health grounds.
Last September, the teenager had planned to carry out an alleged “Christchurch-style” attack, sources close to the case who are not authorised to speak publicly have alleged.
The teenager allegedly made violent threats to classmates at an inner-west Sydney school and mentioned terrorist who killed 51 people in the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre in New Zealand.
The teenager was charged last year with using carriage service to menace, harass or offend and stalking or intimidating with intent to cause fear of physical harm.
Those charges were dismissed on mental health grounds and he was put into the care of a doctor.
In a children’s court on Tuesday, the 14-year-old was refused bail to reappear on October 1.
Source Agencies
