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A
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A
Today we're going to cover the recent terrorist attack in Australia.
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Content Warning this episode includes discussion of violence, terrorism, murder and hatred and anti Semitism and Islamophobia.
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A
On Sunday, December 14, 2025, the unthinkable happened in Australia. A crowd was gathered in Archer Park. This is a small grassy park next to Bondi beach in Sydney, Australia. Bondi beach is both the name of this famous beach as well as the surrounding suburb. The suburb has long been a major hub for Sydney's Jewish community. That day, some members of that community had a reason to gather in the green space right near the beach, often used for events and festivals.
- [03:48]
B
Sunday was the first day of Hanukkah. In Judaism, Hanukkah is a holiday that typically falls in November or December. It is a festive celebration that features gift giving and lighting. A menorah to commemorate the Maccabean revolt.
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A
Hundreds of people were gathered at that spot near Bondi beach to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah. There was a celebration, Hanukkah by the Sea. That's a public Hanukkah celebration that happens every year. There's always music, prayers, a menorah lighting, lots of activities for the kids. It was crowded, lots of families, lots of children.
- [04:22]
B
A detailed article from the Guardian breaks down a very tight timeline.
- [04:26]
A
This is what happened next. Around 6:40pm the terrorists arrived. They had rifles. They started firing at people from a distance of about 50 meters or about 164ft.
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Videos captured by those there show what happened next. People fleeing, screaming, chaos, dead and wounded people lying on the ground.
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A
New South Wales police got the first call at 6:43pm the older perpetrator was shot and fell around 6:47pm the younger fell injured at 6:50pm all in all, it was just about 10 minutes in that time.
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Those two perpetrators, those two terrorists killed 15 people. They injured dozens more, including two police officers.
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A
Authorities say this was a terrorist attack motivated by hatred for Jewish people.
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Antisemitism reports have come out about the perpetrators. We will not name them.
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A
According to media sources, one of the perpetrators, the younger one, had ties to an Islamic State linked cell in Sydney.
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B
The Islamic State is a terrorist organization that seeks to essentially, and this is really boiling it down, but essentially they want to take over so called Muslim lands and then subsequently so called non Muslim lands and kill or enslave everyone who disagrees with their own highly politicized, highly violent interpretation of Islam. For a time around 2013, this group acquired territory in Iraq and Syria, became known for many brutal atrocities including the genocide of the Yazidi people, the persecution of Christians and Shia Muslims and the gruesome beheadings of captives. They also have been linked to terrorist attacks around the world and inspired so called lone wolf attacks where individuals with no direct ties to them go off and do horrible things.
- [06:17]
A
All we will say about the individual perpetrators of the Bondi beach attack is the following they were 50 and 24. They were a father and son. The 50 year old was an Indian national in Australia legally and had lived there for years. The 24 year old was an Australian citizen. Police killed the 50 year old. The 24 year old was wounded but survived and he now faces murder and terrorism charges.
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B
Instead of naming them, we will name the dead. They deserve to be remembered. Dozens of people were injured. Fifteen people died. Our sources for this are NBC.
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Alex Kleitman was 87. He was a retired civil engineer and had been married for 57 years. He and his wife both survived the Holocaust. He was from Ukraine. He was shot and killed at the Hanukkah celebration.
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Timber Weitzen was 78. He was killed, came to Australia from Israel all the way back in 1988.
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A
Boris and Sophia, German were a couple who tackled one of the perpetrators. They wrestled him and got a gun from him. They were 69 and 61. Boris was a mechanic and Sophia worked for the Australian post. They were both shot and killed.
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B
Edith Brutman was 68. She is survived by her son. She was active in the Jewish community.
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A
Boris Tetelroyd was 68. His son was shot as well but survived.
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Reuven Morrison was 62. He was from the Soviet Union and fled anti Semitism there to go to Australia. His relatives told the media he was trying to throw bricks at the perpetrators when he was shot and killed. He sacrificed himself trying to save others.
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A
Peter Meager was big into rugby through his club Randwick Rugby. He was a former police officer and a freelance photographer working the event. He was 61.
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Marika Pogany is from Slovakia and she was killed. She was 82.
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A
Eli Schlanger was a rabbi who helped organize the Hanukkah. Eventually. He has a wife and five children, one of whom is two months old. His wife and baby were also injured in the attack. They were all at the celebration. He was 41.
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Yaakov Levitan was also a rabbi. He had a wife and four children. He was 39.
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Dan Elkayem was 27 and a French citizen. He was also Jewish. He loved soccer and living in Sydney. He had recently moved to Australia.
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B
The youngest victim was Matilda Britvan. She was 10 years old. She was a bright and happy little girl. She was at the Hanukkah celebration. She was shot and killed in front of her little six year old sister.
- [08:42]
A
There will be more dead. Those are just the ones that the news has reported on so far. The Bondi beach attack is the second deadliest mass shooting in Australia's modern history after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, which we will discuss more later. It is the deadliest terrorist attack in Australian history. Today we will talk about what happened at Bondi Beach. We will hear more on this tragedy from an Australian. We will talk with her about why this terrorist attack, why this tragedy has had such a seismic impact within Australia. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist.
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B
And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.
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A
And this is the Murder Sheet.
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We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet.
- [09:29]
A
And this is the Bondi beach terrorist attack. We follow the news of this attack very closely. I have family in Australia. We felt terrible for the victims and their families, along with the Australian Jewish community and all of Australia and for all our Australian listeners, that small but mighty community.
- [10:30]
B
We were heartened to get an email from one of those listeners, Amanda. She wrote us a very eloquent and thoughtful message. She reached out to share some things with us about the attack and Australia's response to it. We replied by asking her on the program and she was kind enough to make that work. Despite the enormous time difference.
- [10:51]
A
She's really nice and cool and told us it was okay if we pronounce Australian place names wrong, because sometimes she does too. So that's going to be our get out of jail free card for every single thing ever. Amanda is going to serve today as a bit of a cultural correspondent for us. Here's our conversation with her. As always, edited a bit for clarity. So first of all, Amanda, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.
- [11:15]
C
Thank you guys for having me. I think, like, as I said in the email, I feel a little bit unqualified. I was sort of just trying to be a dictionary between the two cultures. But when you approached very cautiously and gently, I was like, oh, yes. Oh my gosh, that's an Honour, but also like, it gives me a chance to kind of circle rationalize what I was trying to say in that I wish that I was chatting with you guys in person, not over email, in a better circumstance, because this is horrible. But I really appreciate the chance to talk. And if you hear me laughing or making a slightly ironic joke or giggling nervously, that's not to take away from the magnitude of what's happening happened. It's all part of making it normal, I guess, making it okay.
- [12:05]
A
So well said and thank you so much, Amanda. This is unfortunately a common experience for Murder sheet listeners where they reach out to us and they get dragooned into an episode. So you're the latest and we read your email.
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B
We're very impressed by how you expressed yourself in the email. And can you share with the audience some of the things that you wanted to share with us and that you wanted people to understand?
- [12:31]
C
So I grew up in Sydney and so all of these areas, the geographical locations are really important to me. But I was, prior to changing into nursing as a career, in my early 20s, I was working in a corporate role and I had an amazing mentor. And that was, I think, the first time I kind of saw fear within a community based on religion. And it was a fear at the time which I felt was actually really disproportionate to a threat response. So there was an incident where my boss had a week where he pretty much was exhausted, looking like he'd been pulling all nighters every night. And he did share with me the reason why. And that was that he had two primary school age children and there had been graffiti, a vandalism episode at the synagogue that they attend. And so all of the parents in this community, the synagogue is not on the same property as the school, it's actually the next suburb over. But the parents of this primary school community were rostered to become its own security patrol force. And it wasn't about protection of the building. It was really like a community volunteer militia, but not militia because we're Australia and we're unarmed. Having to make their own roster because of that depth of fear.
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B
At the time, Amanda was sympathetic to her boss and his community and their fears, but she did not understand the magnitude of that reaction, not at the time, at least.
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C
So with the events of Sunday, it was this sinking feeling of that that fear that I thought was out of proportion 20 years ago is suddenly realized in the most horrific way.
- [14:20]
A
We went into a topic that can be controversial and heated here in the United States. We talked about the Differences in the United States and Australia when it comes to gun violence. These two countries have taken very different approaches to gun violence since the 1990s.
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B
Let's return to the United States for a moment. This weekend, a high profile mass shooting took place. Sometimes mass shootings get a lot of attention because of the numbers. High casualty events break through into the national media. Other times it's more about who or where the shooting takes place.
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A
On Saturday, December 13, 2025, in Providence, Rhode Island, a high profile mass shooting took place in Brown University. Brown is a top university in the United States. It's one of our Ivy League schools, one of the best in the country and the seventh oldest college in the United States. Two young students were killed in that shooting. Ella Cook and Mohammed Aziz amerzakov. They were 19 and 18, a sophomore and a freshman. Cook was a student of math and French. She was from Alabama. She was in the school's College Republicans. She was musical and kind and dedicated to her Christian faith. Amer Zakov had lived in Midlothian, Virginia and before that Brooklyn, New York. He and his family were originally from Uzbekistan, but they all had become United States citizens. He was apparently a very funny guy, a great friend who wanted to be a brain surgeon. He was a studious and encouraging person. Many others were wounded in this horrible attack. As of right now, as of us recording this, the police have not caught the perpetrator.
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B
All of that has been a big deal here in the United States and in our media. It is a tragedy. It makes us angry, it makes us sad, it makes us feel for the families and the survivors. But can any of us Americans really say it's shocking? We don't feel like it is. Not when similar stories are in the news here week after week.
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C
Try and say that what happened at Brown on the weekend like last week as well, is somehow lesser because it's not. Any gun violence is really tragic, but we don't see this. This is new to us. This is a stripping away of an innocence of we thought we were safe. And that's not a feeling that is going to be really easy for us to rationalize. Psyche wise.
- [16:36]
A
To put it bluntly, gun violence is constant in the United States. That's just not the case in Australia at all. In 2023, the United States had 17,927 gun related homicides, according to the Pew Research Center. So what about Australia? Well, from July 2023 to July 2024, the Australian Institute of Criminology listed 31 gun related homicides in Australia. 31. Not 3,100, not 31,031 in a year. You might be wondering if Australia maybe catches up to the United States in any meaningful way. As far as other forms of homicide. Like do they just use knives instead? Well, we check that too. We checked the United nations office on Drugs and crime data for 2023. That year, Australia saw 226 intentional homicides. That's a rate of 0.854 per 100,000 inhabitants. The United States had 5.763 intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, or 19,796. If you had the power to stop a crime before it happened, wouldn't you do it? What if that crime was done against yourself or your own family? Well, with Simplisafe's home security system, you can stop break ins and burglaries before they even happen.
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- [19:17]
A
Now let's just be clear. We're talking about two rather different population sizes. In 2023, Australia's population was around 26.9 million. The population of the United States was 334.9 million. So there were way more people in the United States. By pointing out the Differences in gun violence and even homicide rates. We're not necessarily trying to compare countries. That might be a bit like comparing apples and oranges. But we are noting that Australia has very few gun homicides, and that is in large part due to both strict gun control laws and hugely different cultural attitudes towards guns in Australia. Amanda experienced some of that difference firsthand when she came to live in the States for a bit.
- [19:59]
C
I did actually live in Southern California for a year for work, and I was over there when the Virginia Tech massacre happened. And I think murder sheet listeners are pretty intelligent, reasonable, logical people. That's why we are an awesome little community and we hang out with our hosts. And so I would say the caliber of people or the types of thought process of the people that I choose to associate with are of similar values to me. So I guess one of the biggest culture shocks I had in going across to America happened in the aftermath of that shooting and a realization of that guns are an identity piece in America, because these people who I thought might understand the Australian response to our single largest mass, mass casualty event, which was the Port Arthur massacre when I was like, 12, our response was a complete overhaul of gun legislation, a gun buyback scheme. So it doesn't. You. Yes, we acknowledge you've bought this thing that you legally owned, but we have now decided it is a risk. We cannot have this. You bring us your guns, we will give us the. We will give you the money that you paid for those guns in this process, because we were gonna not let it happen again. And so, in talking about and processing that aftermath with colleagues, but also the flatmates that I was living with at the time, it was such an alien thought process to me. And I wasn't judging it, but it was like one of those surreal moments where you step back and you go, wow, I am on a different planet. Like, we have such a difference was because their response was, this is why they shouldn't have banned guns in schools and on campuses, because if just one of those kids had their guns, none of this couldn't have happened as badly as it was.
- [21:58]
B
Again, Amanda's stressed. She's not pointing out these differences in judgment. She's just noticing a pretty big cultural difference. And for my fellow Americans, the stuff about guns is something about our culture that confuses a lot of people who are not from here, and we should be aware of that. But let's actually step back for a second and talk about the Port Arthur massacre for just a moment. We will not be naming the perpetrator. It happened on April 28, 1996 in the Australian state of Tasmania, in the tourist town of Port Arthur, many of the victims were killed at a historic site. The perpetrator took two semiautomatic rifles and proceeded to kill 35 people and wound 23 more.
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A
What happened there was the stuff of nightmares. The victims ranged in age from 6 to 72. The fear some of them must have felt before dying is unimaginable. That tragedy prompted Australia to completely overhaul its gun control laws and restrict legal gun ownership.
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C
So that's not to say like that America has zero gun control because there have been lessons learned from the big ones that I remember before that, like Columbine, you but that the realization the awareness of a gun is more than a tool or an object to America has never been more clear than in that moment. Because these weren't people who had a recreational interest or a sporting interest in going shooting every weekend. These people weren't gun owners. But this was still that level of logic because it was such a core part of identity. The option of guns not existing, that was an alien a concept to them as an alien as it was for me to think of 17 year old shooting their classmate to end a tragedy because for me that's just more tragedy.
- [23:51]
A
I think Amanda is hitting upon something big in terms of the United States. Courts have interpreted gun ownership as a right enshrined in our Constitution through the second Amendment in the Bill of Rights. We also have a huge gun culture in the United States. You have people who don't get guns, don't want guns, would prefer something more like what Australia did after Port Arthur or something even more restrictive. You have people more in the middle who want law abiding citizens to be able to easily own guns for their enjoyment and protection, but also want more cracking down in terms of penalizing irresponsible gun owners or keeping guns out of the hands of disturbed people. And then you have people who actually want to expand so called gun rights as we do on most things. America runs the gamut. In 2023, according to Gallup data, 56% of respondents wanted stricter gun laws, 31% wanted them to stay the same. 12% wanted looser gun laws, so that's a majority for stricter laws. That being said, 64% of respondents think a gun makes a home safer rather than less safe. So you can see a bit of a disparity there. But given the fact that mass shootings continue unabated in this country, there seems to be very little political will amongst our Leaders. As far as enacting changes to combat the problem of gun violence in partisan politics, Democrats tend to favor more gun control. Republicans tend to oppose more gun control. Any effort for significant reform has been thwarted by this partisan impasse, at least in recent years. Whenever I see the discussion of possible gun control measures in the United States, I inevitably come across people saying something to the effect of quote, unquote, if the government takes my guns, they will be able to come and oppress or kill me. I'm not saying that in judgment or even disagreeing or agreeing with that sentiment. It's just a common mentality here in the United States. Guns are not just seen as a tool, they're part of an identity. They're equated with freedom, with the ability to take care of oneself, with the ability to protect one's family, with the ability to defend one's own life and liberty. In many ways, at least in some places, the United States has a highly individualistic culture, and owning firearms is a part of that. For people with that mindset, the threat to take away guns is truly an existential one. There. There is such a stark difference in culture in this, and I think that's why we were so interested in talking to you. Because, I mean, for. For people in the United States, gun violence, unfortunately, and mass casualty events caused by gun violence are a very regular occurrence to the point where I think a lot of people in society are somewhat numb to it. It's not that we don't care, it's just that we're seeing it so often that, you know, like, it really.
- [26:31]
C
The impact is removed. Yeah.
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A
Like it takes a higher casualty count almost to really, I think, get a lot of attention anymore in Australia. Can you tell about how that's different?
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C
Yeah. So first, I just want to clarify. I don't think that people not living in the trauma and the grief of the moment when one of these style of mass events happens is a fault or a lacking in empathy of any American people. I think it kind comes from a. This hurts so much and we feel so powerless to change it that I actually can't feel that level of emotion and empathy and grief every single time it happens, because I'll drown in it. That's how I look at it, like from the American context. It's an area where it's so powerless to change that you have to switch off your emotional response, the kind of depth of the emotional response, because you couldn't survive it if you were carrying every single person that died to gun violence. So I'M not going to be like, I don't know, like minimizing or saying, like, our gun control works. Because obviously on Sunday we saw flaws in the legislation that we have. But even prior to the mass event on Sunday, there has been a consistent rise. So port Arthur was 1996. That's makes me feel really old because it's almost 30 years ago.
- [28:03]
A
So.
- [28:04]
C
Yes. Guns are not something that, you know, somebody who owns a gun you would not like. Okay, if I was planning a murder, which is a good thought exercise that we are often done on the murder sheet, except you guys go to serial theft. But if I was planning a serial heist, I wouldn't know where to get a gun to hold up the serial delivery truck. That wouldn't. That wouldn't be an accessible thing.
- [28:28]
A
Yeah, my rocket, Amanda.
- [28:30]
C
Yeah, I know. But it's slightly. I gotta find some way. And I absolutely get it because you've gotta find some way. Less dark. It's nice to have a little side escape that is already predetermined in serial theft. That can just lighten moments while we're talking because it's not a great reason to be talking for the first time face to face. So if I was planning a serial theft, I wouldn't know, like, oh, I know my dad's got a gun or my brother's got a gun. I could steal this gun for my heist. That's impossible. Like 3D printed guns are a thing that exist now, you know. So if I was really serious about this serial theft, there would be ways for me to access a gun.
- [29:14]
B
In terms of getting a gun in Australia, you might try getting one illegally off the black market if you know the right people. Or you could try to use your connections to get a ghost gun, as Amanda said. She also mentioned an aspect of guns in Australia that was covered in a television series called Underbelly, which dug into gang violence around Melbourne. The show followed outlaw motorcycle gangs linked to the drug trade. Those gang members get their hands on guns sometimes, but the violence is mostly directed at others within the gang subculture.
- [29:49]
C
So I won't like, say guns don't exist here and there's no way to illegally obtain guns. But I think the shock of this moment is that in this instance, the perpetrators didn't have illegally obtained weapons. They had legally obtained weapons. And so that the shattering of the. This doesn't happen here. That moment of we thought we were safe from the legislative changes that happened 30 years ago. That's where the real wake up term is. So I'M not going to lie and say guns don't exist in Australia, but they are much more of a functional tool used by law enforcement.
- [30:34]
A
Some Australians also commonly use guns to deal with one animal that can pose a problem on the roadways.
- [30:39]
C
We have a big kangaroo problem and kangaroos versus cars and they have no street awareness, no road awareness, particularly dusk and dawn. They do tend to. And in summer when it's hot, they tend to be near the roadside on the chance that there has been a storm and they've been able to. There's some water, some moisture on the asphalt. So it's almost like our roads attract them to the side of the road in the hot weather. Yeah, A roo versus car event. Your car is likely to be written off. Like any creature, a kangaroo is very vicious when harmed. And so unfortunately, I guess the most common context I see a gun is with someone humanely putting down a roo at the side of the road because their injuries wouldn't be survivable and they don't make the kindest patients. They are very, very strong.
- [31:33]
B
In general, Australian gun ownership is about utility more than anything else.
- [31:38]
C
You can apply to own a gun as a tool, as a recreational shooter or as land management for wild pigs or even as sporting to go pigging as it's called. I think the equivalent would be boars in America, but we just call them bush pigs. So there is, there is like a gun as a tool situation.
- [32:03]
A
Next, we asked Amanda how she came to learn about the Bondi beach attack. Can you tell me about where you were and what was happening when you first learned that something was going on and sort of take me through that day for you as you and others in your community are learning the details of what happened.
- [32:20]
C
Yeah, so this is actually probably something that could, could, could convey the significance of the moment. So I'm actually a divorced and anyone who's been through a big relationship breakup knows that there's like 2% of people that had an amicable separation. You know, there is not happy things that happen. We had had custody exchange because it had been my son's weekend with his dad and I got a call from my ex husband. So normally after my son's come back, we're spending a lot of time to reconnect and help him through that transition because transitions are tricky when you're a kid of separation parents. So it's like in a no phone mode. Phone is locked away, but he's got his own ringtone because we share a child and that could be for Emergencies. And so it was bizarre for my ex husband to call me and he was calling to say, look, you need to read the news and to check on people that were mutual friends when we were married, that lived in Sydney to see that they were okay. So if that, that moment that it was actually my ex husband calling me to see if people we knew, but also probably if I was okay in this moment, I think shows the magnitude of the event.
- [33:41]
B
So along with much of Australia and ultimately beyond, Amanda began to check in.
- [33:48]
C
The first reports were just like there was a shooting at Bondi. And so your brain goes to there is like some kind of motorcycle gang fight that's taken to the beach because it was hot weather. That's how incomprehensible it was. But we're now in this immediate news cycle, day and age of people recording a video and putting it up on X as a way to process what they've just experienced, but also like warn people. So the official narrative, and that's like what I tend to look for because I don't want to. Yeah, the official narrative was just like stay away from Bondi Beach. There's a shooting event in place. But I mean we see stay away from the Hume Highway. There was a car accident, like the kind of thing. There was no in the messaging, there was no sense of what was really going on. So to actually like see the first video that was sent to me from X or Twitter, which is actually the hero in this story. Well, no, I think there will be many heroes. But that amazing, unfathomable act of heroism and bravery, of sneaking between cars to tackle a gun wielding perpetrator.
- [35:05]
A
That's the same video that we both saw first. The video shows a man named Ahmed Al Ahmed charging the older perpetrator. He grabs him and wrestles away the rifle. He points it at the perpetrator, the perpetrator runs off to his accomplice. Mr. Al Ahmed is a 43 year old father. He was shot twice after this. What he did was a stunning act of heroism. But looking at the details of the video, Amanda felt shocked not only by Mr. Al Ahmed's selfless act, but by the presence of the rifle itself.
- [35:36]
C
The presence of a rifle that changed entirely the context of what was going on. Because yes, a rifle might be what I see to put down humanely, a roo at the side of the road, but it's not something in that kind of gang violence that spills onto the street. So simply the. There were so many things in that image that struck me as the depth of this, even before I knew that there was a fear celebration for the first day of Hanukkah occurring on the beach. At the time, it was something different because we had people who weren't trying to conceal their identities. They didn't have anything covering their faces. So that, that immediately said this is. They don't expect to walk away from this. This is a mission to whoever is doing it and they are willing to die in this mission. I think that was the first thing that I saw that it was a rifle. Like, we do not have AK47s, we do not have high powered weapons. But then like to see a rifle rather than a handgun in this circumstance, just the threat level that, that heightens the range of that weapon, the ability to like it. Guns are already unfair. You don't bring a knife to a gunfight, right? This is like you've just bought a rifle to a gunfight. You can kill them before they've even arrived at the fight with their knife. You know, they're already ill equipped, but you can actually take that action.
- [37:17]
B
Then Amanda found out about a detail that made her heart sink even further. The gunmen were apparently targeting a Hanukkah celebration.
- [37:26]
C
I just feel sick in that because there is nothing more innocent. And we are a really big multicultural melting pot.
- [37:37]
A
Amanda told us that in her experience, many Australians celebrate their multicultural society. Different cultures host different celebrations. For instance, Diwali or the lunar New Year. Those celebrations are public and for the public, meaning people should come in and enjoy the traditions, cuisines, history and more. Even for cultures that they don't belong to, these sorts of festivals and celebrations should be moments of welcoming, great food, community bonding, all that sort of thing.
- [38:03]
C
We have these events all the time where people celebrate certain significant moments of their culture. And that is a beautiful thing in Australia.
- [38:14]
B
Not to mention that in Australia, December is in the middle of summer, but.
- [38:18]
C
The school year is wrapping up. It really is the festive time. It's the walk around and look at decorations and look at which houses are obsessed with Christmas time. It's a very different. It's a very different pace in this season. And so I think that's the other thing that is so shattering of what is, regardless of religion, a time of real joy and community. This is just. Yeah, broken it.
- [38:43]
B
So what's happening in Australia in the days since this tragedy?
- [38:47]
C
I guess one positive thing, because I did feel a little bit guilty that my ferritin level isn't up, up back high enough for me to donate blood. But a couple of Jurisdictions had record numbers of actual blood donations and record numbers of donor appointments being booked. So I think that shows people's desire to do something. And I guess as a nurse, for me, I'm very like, okay, you definitely have helped by doing that. But it's not the shooting victims that are in hospital because they're still gonna get the blood in the massive transfusion packs. It's their kid going through chemo. It's the, you know, the people that are in hospital feeling really unw. But when blood becomes a precious resource, we can, we can look after you and keep you unwell for a little while longer because these people have an urgent need, I guess.
- [39:35]
A
Amanda filled us in about Australia's National Cabinet. This is the body made up of the Australian Federal Prime Minister and the state and territory leaders. In the aftermath of Bondi beach, they proposed further gun reforms. Some of those reforms would address gaps that allowed this event to happen. Amanda said that she was somewhat disappointed with one particular aspect of the government's response. The National Cabinet discussed adding a citizenship requirement to gun ownership. In her view, this would not have stopped the attack. The 24 year old perpetrator was an Australian citizen and she also noted that one of the heroes of the day, Mr. Al Ahmed, was not always a citizen. He is also a Muslim man. He also immigrated to Australia. Media reports indicate that his family was from Syria and that he came to Australia in 2006. According to interviews his parents gave to the media, he is now an Australian citizen. So that suggestion seemed theatrical to her because it was something that would have still allowed weapons into the hands of the perpetrators. She viewed the proposal as performative at best and encouraging suspicion against non citizens at worst. There were other proposals though. Remember how we talked about how Australians can apply to use guns as tools in land management or in recreation?
- [40:45]
C
So one of the perpetrators had acquired six guns legally through the current legislation. So the proposal to actually have that permit system require updating in the way that even a security clearance is time limited, or as a health professional working with vulnerable people, check, like a police check, a background check, those things are time limited. You do not get that for a lifetime. You get that for a period of time. That period can vary, but it's normally like at max 5 years, years for one of these things. So that's a gap which they're looking to change. So instead of it being lifetime, you are able to own guns. It's now you've gotten your, you've passed what's required for the original registration. But we don't issue that as a lifelong thing. We're going to check in especially. It's something that you guys have analyzed a fair bit too. Like at the intersection of mental health and any kind of crime, the accessibility to guns. If we look at the pretty groundbreaking, and I'm trying to remember the name, you guys will fill it in. But the parents were actually charged because they didn't get the child. Mental health help in America.
- [41:54]
A
Yeah, the Crumbly case.
- [41:56]
C
Yes. Yeah. So that that responsibility was like the fact that that the parents were even charged was sort of a big deal for you guys in America. And that's where a lot of the discourse around mental health and access to guns, that intersection came in. Well, our current system doesn't leave room to revoke that permit until after a crime has been committed. So, for example, if hypothetically the perpetrator had been arrested for family violence against his wife, there would be a legal ability to seize those firearms and to retract that permit. But until that point has happened, his ownership was not like contested. There is no way to take the guns away. So the proposed change for having a, like a license that needs to be renewed and updated, that's really powerful.
- [42:48]
A
So that sort of proactive intervention is another thing on the table. One thing that has been frustrating for Amanda and for some other Australians is seeing Americans weigh in on this terrible situation from a purely US Focused context on gun control. She told us she understood where some of those comments were coming from, but feels like those commentators are missing a big piece of the picture.
- [43:09]
C
I want to get a couple of messages across because I really don't want. Whenever a gun control debate comes up in America, there are arguments that, like gun control doesn't work. So that's one thing that I wanted to state here. We thought we were safe in the same way that pre September 11th terrorism, that level of violence, this constant cycle of an eye for an eye in the world going blind, that was something that happened somewhere else abstract until it happened here. So we've got that same reaction to this doesn't happen here because we did take such decisive action after Port Arthur. And so I think that it's really important to state that this isn't a failure of gun control. This is a awareness of the gaps that we didn't know existed and if we knew existed a week before, wouldn't have existed. So there will be swift legislative change so that we can't see a repeat. Australia is actually really good through our coronial process and everything at looking inwards Honestly, we are good at looking inwards and fixing gaps when we notice that our systems have failed. So for, for this moment, this isn't gun control failing, it's us not having updated it to the circumstances that we have now faced. I guess. So the actions we take from here can hopefully inspire in other areas that controls can work. But also give us the reminder that you need to check on the defense that you erected 30 years ago to make sure it still works.
- [45:04]
B
If you look at this from a purely numbers standpoint, Australian gun control does seem to work. We went over the numbers earlier. They have very few gun homicide deaths. That's a good thing. Now you can certainly argue this wouldn't be possible in America for any number of reasons, or that the US is simply different culturally and politically and whatnot. Fine, but that's a whole other argument. And if that's the case, then Americans still shouldn't be coming in and pretending that they have expertise about something they know very little about in a different country. And that's our opinion here on the Murder Sheet.
- [45:45]
C
Thank you guys for a chance to sort of give a little bit of bridging of culture into what this moment represents. Because I think it would be easy, especially because I do see a lot of American media to see how much focus on Australia for America kind of mostly looks at itself and reports on itself. And so I can see how like, I don't know, like a older sibling America might be thinking, like, geez, they're certainly making a big deal about that. Like, harden up princess. Like, get over it, this happens. I, I just went full Aussie on you. Not eloquent at all. Have a teaspoon of concrete, hot the up.
- [46:28]
A
Honestly, I think for me as an American, I, I, it was upsetting because I, I know I, maybe it's because I'm into true crime, but I knew there were such sweeping changes after Port Arthur and it was like, wow, that really doesn't happen there. This might, this must be really horrifying. And we're almost seeing it, it like, wow, what must it be like to be shocked by this? I guess that, and I think a lot of people are in that boat. Some people might be saying toughen up, but I think, I think most of us are just like very sad for Australia.
- [46:58]
C
Well, and look, I think the toughen up and the harden up princess is just that psychological defense. If I, if I accept, if I actually let in the reality of how devastating this moment is on a human level in the festive season where mothers are Missing children, children are missing parents. That's, that's too much grief to bear. So much better to just act like this is a fact of life that can't be avoided and tell little old Australia what are you making a big deal of? Like that's a Tuesday, you know, because that's a way to keep safe from what is just really unthinkable tragedy that is gun violence.
- [47:38]
A
Either way, whether or not you agree with it, I think it's facetious to say that Australia's gun control is a failure. The fact that this tragedy is actually shocking to their society is a sign that it works pretty well. Generally. A policy or a rule does not have to work a hundred percent of the time to be functional or even a success. For Amanda and we imagine many Australians, she is heartbroken for the Jewish community in Australia. They were targeted on a day that should have been a big celebration for them. Them in a cowardly attack that saw a very high death toll. Amanda fears for them and the trauma this has inflicted upon these innocent people. Amanda also worries for the Muslim community in Australia. For her, one concern resulting from this incident is that the terrorist attack will be collectively blamed on all Muslims and that the actions of these two deranged individuals will encourage widespread faith based prejudice against innocent people who have nothing to do with this tragedy.
- [48:31]
C
I fear that we are going to fall into culturally a level of festering Islamophobia that existed and did nothing to heal anyone in the early 2000s here in Australia. I'm really fearful of that occurring.
- [48:47]
B
She hopes that people will remember that again. One of the people who strived to stop the perpetrators was also a Muslim man.
- [48:56]
C
The symbolism of Ahmed Al Ahmed being a Muslim man who risked his life and was harmed in the process to interrupt this horrific act of violence. I think I really want people to be able to breathe and pause on that moment to understand that this is not the Muslim faith. People made terrible decisions with horrific consequences.
- [49:26]
A
That perhaps is something that should speak to people. But Amanda's concern is that this will further drive divisions in Australia that innocent Muslims who have nothing to do with the choices of these murderers will suffer and that others will turn around and blame the victims or even entire groups of people for what happened. After all, in the lead up to this event, many Jewish people in Australia have said that antisemitism has been on the rise.
- [49:48]
C
So I think it's important in this conversation to actually not hide behind the false comfort that Othering gives us. And I guess if I pull this back to the true Crime context and responsible true crime, which is something that since you guys became part of the case in Delphi, has been a really important thing. But victim blaming in true crime is a seeking of safety, of psychological safety, of this can't happen to me or this can't happen here by finding fault with the person so that they can be reassured that. Not that I, I don't think I can find any blame if, if I'm talking about Abby and Libby, because there is zero. There's none, there's none to be had. Two beautiful lives were taken away. But that search to find a way to blame them is really when most people who go into victim blaming can't have the insight to look within themselves and ask why am I doing this? But it is this need to make what happened less horrific. So if I other the victim, if I say she shouldn't have been walking home alone at night wearing those clothes, then I feel safer walking home alone at night because I have found some way in this horrific tragedy to make myself feel safe so that I'm not walking around in fear. And I think that same othering, the same. It's not victim blaming that's going on here, but the othering of a group right now is what happened in Sydney between, you know, 99 and 2004 when we had big violence, the Cronulla riots, which was really a festering Islamophobia like with more and more in global context events like 9, 11 adding to that. But it's was already there and it was building and more events happened past until we had this like violent explosion.
- [51:58]
A
Any situation when you're looking at the absolute worst people in a group and you're saying everyone in the group's like that you're doing something wrong. Like that's just like you should never be doing like, like do not do that with any religion, with any ethnic group. Just like there's bad people out there and they're going to use whatever excuses they're going to use to do bad things. And I mean that maybe that's kind of a basic way of looking at the world, but I tend to think like no one would like it if their group, a group they belong to was being judged by the same standards. So I think you just have to do away with collective guilt. Yes.
- [52:30]
C
And, but that's also like, I think that's, it's not bad to bring it down to basic. You're actually absolutely right to bring it down to basic. Yes, these men may have been of Muslim faith, but the man that risked his own life to interrupt it is of that same faith. The actions of these deluded people are not representative of the faith. You called your explanation simplistic. But we actually do need to get back to the humanity at the core. And they're simple, that the action of one is not the whole group. And look, we can't interrupt with the depth of realized fear, which is really what I was reaching out to in my own early reflections, the horror of that mentor person. Because to see that fear realized.
- [53:24]
B
Amanda said, it's important to remember the trauma that this has brought upon the Jewish community in Australia. They're going to feel less safe now. They're going to feel at risk and under threat from religiously motivated anti Semitic attacks from perpetrators affiliated with the Islamic State and other terrorist groups.
- [53:45]
C
Their deepest fears have been realized in the most horrific of ways. We can't. No one can expect them to separate the religious overtones from what has happened right now. But for the rest of us, for the melting pot of different cultures that is Australia, outside of those faiths, we can and we need to. We need to state that yes, dangerous is extremism. Ideology was absolutely there for the younger of the perpetrators, that is a factor. But this was still individuals acting. This was not a faith or a group. And keep it as simple, as basic as you said, Anya, you said that self deprecatingly, like making it basic is somehow not doing justice. But making it basic is getting back to the humanity of the moment.
- [54:45]
A
We mentioned the Germans, that heroic couple who gave their lives to defend others, and the older gentleman, Mr. Morrison, who threw bricks at the perpetrators. There was also the 22 year old probationary Constable Jack Hibbard, who continued to help people until he physically could no longer. He survived, but will lose an eye. Then there's Detective Senior Constable Cesar Barraza. Footage captured him running up in a shirt and tie across open ground toward the perpetrators. He fired at them with a handgun shortly after the older perpetrator went down. Then of course, there is Mr. Alamed. Amanda hopes that we can all take after Mr. Al Ahmed's example in that moment where he lunged at one of the perpetrators. That we can reflect on our shared humanity and shared decency, regardless of our faith, our lack of faith, our culture, our nationality, our upbringing, our class, or the color of our skin. That we can choose to be like Mr. Al Ahmed and step up and fight back against evil and wrongdoing, regardless of whoever's doing it, whether it's someone different from us or someone who looks and lives and prays exactly like us that we can reject, malign and push out radical extremism like the extremism pushed by the Islamic State that very likely sparked what happened on Sunday. That we can disavow any anti Semitism, Islamophobia or radical views that push us to hate our neighbors. We want to thank Amanda for sharing her insights and perspective. Thank you to all our Australian listeners. Our hearts go out to you and to the victims of this horrible crime.
- [56:10]
B
Please email us@murdersheetmail.com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
- [56:24]
A
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- [56:48]
B
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with.
- [56:59]
A
Other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.