A gang of teenagers who were arrested after injuring 19 people in a rampage through an Australian high school with baseball bats and machetes have treated the attack as a joke while in custody, police said yesterday.
Five boys aged between 14 and 16 were charged with a total of 101 offenses, including assault and causing malicious damage, after police arrested them at gunpoint to end Monday’s raid on the Merrylands High School in suburban Sydney.
At a brief hearing yesterday at Parramatta Children’s Court, police asked that the suspects — all minors under Australian law — be held in jail until a further hearing.
None of the five appeared in court. Nor did they enter a plea or make applications for bail.
They were remanded in custody until May 22.
Police handed documents to the court arguing why each of the teenagers should not be set free on bail.
“The young person has shown no remorse,” the documents said about one suspect, in comments common to some of the others. “While in custody, he treated the matter as a joke and used his time in custody to plan future criminal enterprises.”
The documents did not elaborate on the “criminal enterprises.”
Lawyers for the suspects did not immediately respond to the police claims.
The five — two aged 14, two 15, and one 16 — were arrested after storming into the school, smashing windows, terrorizing students and bashing at least one teacher who tried to stop them over the head.
Police claim the gang assaulted seven students and two teachers, and smashed windows and doors, causing more than A$15,000 (US$14,000) damage during the six-minute rampage. Each count of assault carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison.
Eighteen students were slightly hurt — mostly cuts from broken glass.
Serious violence in Australian schools is rare, and shootings and stabbings almost unheard of.
No suspected motive for the attack was given yesterday. Police said on Monday the suspects may have been looking for someone in particular.
Police have refused to say whether the alleged attackers were students at the school.
The drama unfolded as hundreds of students attended a routine assembly in an outdoor area of the school about 9am.
As the attackers arrived at the scene brandishing weapons, teachers rushed the students back to class, where they sought refuge behind locked doors, under desks and even in a cupboard.
Worried parents rushed to the school as students flooded the airwaves with calls from mobile phones and news of the attack was broadcast.
The raid was “sustained and violent” and had caused “horrific physical and emotional harm” to hundreds of students at the school that would take years to repair, the police documents said.
“The premeditated actions of the young persons were an attack on the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Australians on a daily basis, to attend school in an atmosphere of safety and security,” they said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS