A man stabbed two women in Australia on Tuesday and was threatening more people when he was subdued by three British men who used a milk crate and a chair to pin him down until police arrived.
A video shows the man, identified as Mert Ney, 21, yelling “Allahu Akbar” and “f***king shoot me in the face,” as he ran around the streets in Sydney brandishing a huge knife at about 2 p.m. on Tuesday, The Sun reported.
Dramatic footage released by The Sun showed one man bravely confronting the knife-wielding Ney with a chair after he jumped onto a car. Two others jumped into the fray and subdued Ney.
The heroes, Alex Roberts, Lee Cuthbert, and Paul O’Shaughnessy, are young men who disregarded their own welfare to stop the “Mad Stabber.’
Police then arrived and took Ney into custody.
Of the two women he is suspected of stabbing with a large knife, one was found dead in her apartment. The woman was “a sex worker that he had a date with but killed instead. The 21-year-old woman’s body was found in a fourth-floor apartment in Clarence Street at about 3:15pm yesterday,” Australia’s news.com.au reported.
“Ney, of Marayong outside Sydney, spent Tuesday night under police guard at Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick. He is expected to face charges over the incident which left one woman dead and another injured,” news.com.au added.
The agency also reported that according to New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller, the man was a “lone actor” and said early inquiries found he may have held some concerning ideologies, but the incident was not terror-related. “Information was found on him that would suggest he had some ideologies related to terrorism, but he has no links to terrorism … he has no apparent links to terror organisations,” he said.
The Family Speaks Out
As reported by news.com.au, Ney “descended into insanity over the last week, according to his sister, who said today she had been afraid for his well-being.”
Ms. Ney said, “I think it’s obvious that it’s, like, a steep descent into, like, insanity I guess…. He… he has, I think the word is, absconded from hospital … we thought he was a threat to himself,” Ms. Ney told news.com.au.
She said her brother had battled anxiety, OCD, depression and schizophrenia.
Ms. Ney said she was “ashamed to share the same family name as her brother, was disgusted by his actions and would not be visiting him.”
“I’m shocked, angry, disgusted, I hate my last name,” she added. “I don’t want to go near him because he did something so despicable.”
She expressed remorse for the victims, saying, “What happened to those two women is tragic, I feel disgusted.’
“The woman who was stabbed was younger than me, she could’ve gone out to go shopping with her mum, have dinner with her boyfriend … and she can’t do that now, can she? I still can’t believe it’s him but it is him.”
