Old police comments falsely linked to Sydney church attack

Published on May 13, 2024 at 08:52
3 min read
By Joseph OLBRYCHT PALMER, AFP Australia

An old video of a police press briefing in Sydney resurfaced in social media posts that falsely linked it to a stabbing attack that seriously wounded an Assyrian bishop in April 2024. The video circulated several hours before the police spoke to the press in posts claiming to share live updates about the recent attack. But it actually shows a now-retired police commissioner discussing the fatal stabbing of a woman in Sydney in August 2019.

"According to spokesperson for NSW, Attacker was known to police. Attacker has a history of mental Health," read a hashtag-heavy post shared on social media platform X on April 15, 2024.

A video showing clips from a police press conference is attached to the post.

The post was part of a longer thread about the stabbing of an Assyrian bishop during a live-streamed church service in Western Sydney on the same day.

Screenshot of the false X post, captured on May 8, 2024

The same claim and video were also shared elsewhere on X and Facebook hours after the attack.

Two people were stabbed when a 16-year-old suspect rushed the dais at an Assyrian Christian church, slashing wildly at Bishop Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel who was giving a sermon.

The suspect was immediately subdued by outraged congregants and later taken into police custody.

There were tense scenes outside the church after the attack -- which police later described as a religiously motivated "terrorist" act -- with two officers hospitalised after hundreds of angry members of the local community tried to make their way past a phalanx of riot police to reach the suspect.

But the video circulating online was shared hours before the police issued a statement to the media and actually showed a press briefing in 2019.

Old police presser

The video shows a press conference from August 2019 with NSW's former police commissioner Mick Fuller, who retired in 2022, and the state's former police minister David Elliott, who retired from politics in 2023 (archived links here, here and here).

In the press conference, Fuller is speaking about a high-profile, deadly stabbing of a woman in Sydney in 2019.

The same footage was used in a video posted by The Guardian on its verified YouTube channel on August 14, 2019 (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video used in the false posts (left) and video posted on YouTube in August 2019 (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video used in the false posts (left) and video posted on YouTube in August 2019 (right)

AFP cited Fuller's remarks at the time, reporting that the attacker was a 21-year-old man with a history of mental illness and no known links to terror organisations.

The man, Mert Ney, was jailed for 44 years in May 2021 (archived link).

Authorities had originally given the age of Bishop Emmanuel's attacker as 15.

In a subsequent press conference alongside NSW premier Chris Minns on April 16, 2024, police commissioner Karen Webb said the attacker was 16 years old.

"After consideration of all the material, I declared that it was a terrorist incident," she told a news conference.

The attacker was "known to police" but was not on any terror watchlists, Webb said.

The church attack came two days after a man with a knife killed six people at a busy shopping complex in Sydney's east before being shot dead by police.

That attack also spawned misinformation, which AFP has debunked here and here.

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