Willetton stabbing: What radicalised teen told cops moments before he was shot dead outside Bunnings in Perth following stabbing

A radicalized teenager who was shot dead by police reportedly referred to Palestine and warned he would kill all the men in the area during a triple-0 call in his harrowing final minutes.

The teenager, identified by his first name ‘James’, stabbed a man in the Willetton Bunnings car park in Perth’s south on Saturday evening.

Armed with a large knife, he then lunged at three police officers, who then shot the boy dead after they could not stop him with Tasers.

It has since been reported that James called police five minutes prior to the incident and referred to the federal government’s support for Israel.

James also stated that he intended to kill all the men in the area. The Western Australia reported.

Western Australian Police Commissioner Col Blanch said it was still unknown whether the war in Gaza could have motivated the teenager.

“I believe this is currently the subject of the investigation, and this is the reason he took action that night,” Commissioner Blanch said Tuesday.

“Something happened that night that we need to determine what it was, but we don’t know.”

He remains convinced that James acted alone.

“We have no intelligence indicating that anyone is associated with him in connection with these actions…I am confident at this point, as we are in the investigation, that he acted alone,” Commissioner Blanch said.

Although the police have not yet labeled the incident as a terrorist act despite its ‘characteristics’, this has not been ruled out in the future.

“It meets the definition of a terrorist act,” Commissioner Blanch added.

There was a heavy police presence at the home of the teen’s mother on Tuesday.

Some of the boy’s phones and other electronic devices have been seized by police.

His family is said to be ‘extremely emotional’.

It comes after police were forced to investigate threats against Rossmoyne Senior High School, where James was a student, after threats of violence were made online – later revealed to be a hoax.

The disturbing messages were sent via the school’s internal forum for students and teachers on Monday evening.

They include: ‘All I say is Allahu Ahkbar, I will kill the n…… tomorrow’ and ‘the reason I put gang signs on my pictures is because I always planned to be at the school to shoot and f… all n…… c… you will all be punished for what you said to me at school, we will prevail’.

WA Police Minister Paul Papalia has since confirmed the messages were a sick joke.

School principal Alan Brown had previously labeled the messages a ‘hoax’ and blamed it on a ‘hacking incident’.

“As many of you know, there are some inappropriate messages circulating among students and in the community,” he said in an email Tuesday, obtained by The West.

‘It has been confirmed that this is a hacking incident and the messages do not come from a student.

“Police have been notified and are investigating the matter and have confirmed there is no additional threat to the school or our students.”

In response to the messages, several parents chose to keep their children home from school on Tuesday.

Six police cars and several officers were seen outside the school Tuesday morning.

“My son is not at school today and many of his friends are scared,” one parent told Nine News.

A second mother added: ‘It shouldn’t get to the point where they have to do something.

‘They are [students] they are genuinely scared, they just don’t understand what’s going to happen.”

One parent told reporters as they left a meeting with the school’s principal that authorities would not tell parents whether other youths who are part of a group of known extremists attended the school or where they were located.

“The Department of Education will not release that information,” she said.

The parent said they were told the school had done everything it could to ensure the safety of the students and that there was “no concern” that the student had remained at school after detonating a homemade bomb that had hit a toilet block destroyed.

“We had a known extremist who brought a bomb to school,” she said.

‘They knew he was an extremist even before the bomb. He had been an extremist in a program for about four years, the bomb happened last year.”

She said students at the high school and other schools in the area felt scared, and that if authorities waited for something to happen, it would be too late.

It also emerged on Tuesday that a group of parents had warned that an Islamic prayer room at the school was being used to spread extremist ideologies.

The parents of a Rossmoyne student wrote to Western Australian Education Minister Tony Buti and other elected officials a month before the teenager’s attack to express their fears about attempts by other students to radicalize their son. The Australian reported.

They also raised concerns that a group of Muslim converts at the school were using a special prayer room as a meeting place to try to recruit more children after finding a series of text messages on his son’s phone.

The family has since started an online petition calling for the removal of prayer rooms from all Washington public schools, describing them as “divisive, exclusionary and contrary to the principles of secular education.”

“This practice not only undermines the diverse fabric of our society, but also violates students’ fundamental rights to an education free from religious influences,” the petition said.

‘Additionally, the promotion of religious activities within public schools perpetuates social divisions and contributes to the alienation and marginalization of certain religious and cultural groups, thereby promoting religious radicalization among impressionable students.’

The petition has since collected more than 600 signatures.

Shortly before he was shot dead, James sent a final message to people saying he was walking ‘the path of jihad’, with members of Perth’s concerned Islamic community alerting police to the messages.

“Brethren, please forgive me for every time I have wronged you. I am embarking on the path of jihad tonight for the sake of Allah,” wrote James, who had reportedly converted to Islam.

“I am a soldier of the mujahideen of Al Qaeda and I take responsibility for the actions that will take place tonight.”

He also warned his contacts to “erase” incriminating evidence from devices such as laptops and phones.

“If you have any illegal or jihadist stuff online or in real life, make sure you hide it well and clear your technology, like laptops and phones, including search history… as the police will likely be looking at my contacts,” James wrote .

The teenager had allegedly tried to indoctrinate other students and was filmed throwing a small, homemade explosive into a school toilet block in 2022.

That incident led to him being in a ‘deradicalization program’ for more than two years.