Bondi Beach shooting: Traumatised survivor asks ‘Where were the police! Where was the help!’

A traumatised survivor from Sunday’s Bondi Beach attack approached journalists at a makeshift memorial on Monday and complained help took too long to arrive after gunmen ambushed a Jewish celebration of Hanukkah.

The man interrupted a television interview with two other survivors when he yelled: “They were shooting for ten minutes! Where were the police! Where was the help!”

The man, who declined to give his name, said he was at the Jewish event with his wife and four children in a park next to the Bondi Pavilion, a local landmark, when the shooting began. He dived for cover under a car with his wife, 11-year-old daughter, two-year-old daughter and their infant.

For about 10 minutes, they sheltered, terrified, wondering where their 14-year-old son was while watching people killed around them. They learned later their son fled after two men, a father-and-son team, began shooting at the park from a small concrete bridge that links it to Campbell Parade, the main beachside thoroughfare.

“We didn’t know what to do,” the man told The Nightly. “We didn’t know where to go.”

Four shots in four seconds

The 14-year-old, covered in blood but unhurt, was reunited with his parents at a surf life saving club that became a sanctuary for many of the Jews and others who fled.

Video footage posted on social media showed the younger of the two attackers firing a black bolt-action rifle four times in four seconds. His father’s shotgun was seized by a bystander who has been named online as Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Sutherland fruiterer.

The threat of violence has led Jewish groups in Sydney and other cities to fund armed security guards for synagogues and Jewish schools. It is not clear if any were present for the event to mark the start of Hanukkah, an eight-day celebration usually held around the same time as Christmas.

One of the shooters was killed and the other seriously injured about 12 minutes after the attack began when police officers swarmed the beach suburb. A coronial inquest into the deaths, which numbered 16 on Monday morning, is likely to consider the police response.

Police commissioner Mal Lanyon said there were police present when the attack began and officers shot both men, one fatally. “We responded very promptly,” he said on Monday. “The act of bravery about going forwards is something we should celebrate.”

Paying respects

Archer Park and the bridge were cordoned off Monday morning by a heavy police presence. Bondi Public School, which faces the site of the massacre, was closed.

Survivors, residents and politicians paid their respects to the dead by placing flowers at the rear entrance to the Pavilion, which is about 120m from the bridge.

Among those who visited the site Monday morning was Anthony Albanese, who wore a dark suit and black tie. The Prime Minister declined to take questions from reporters.

Another was Jake Blundell, a celebrity fitness trainer with 1.7 million Instagram followers. Mr Blundell was having dinner at a Greek restaurant inside the Pavilion with his sister and parents, who had arrived from New Zealand for the weekend, when the attack began.

Initially, they did not understand why people were running into the restaurant and hiding under tables and a lost boy was searching for his mother. They could not hear shots.

“We thought it could be tsunami,” Mr Blundell told The Nightly. “No one was saying anything.”

They decided to run for safety, and fortuitously turned south rather than north towards Archer Park. That night the whole family slept in the same room to comfort each other.