Alert – Westfield locked down after a man, 20, was stabbed in the face with the attacker on the run

A Westfield shopping centre in Perth was locked down after a young man was slashed in the face with a knife – with a mother and her teenage son witnessing the horror unfold.

The 20-year-old man was left with stab wounds after a fight broke between him and a group of men at the Westfield Carousel Shopping Centre in the city’s southeastern suburb of Carrington at about 3.30pm on Friday.

The knife was left at the scene and secured by police but officers are still hunting for the attacker.

The shopping complex was locked down on Friday afternoon as several police units were called to the centre. 

One shopper was with her son in the Jay Jays clothing store when she saw the scuffle kick off.

She said a group of men that looked about 18 or 19-years-old said something to another shopper. 

‘This guy turned around and said ‘;what did you say? what did you say?”,’ the woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told Daily Mail .

She said the other man then met up with his friends and confronted the other group, with a physical fight ensuing.

‘They were all punching up, ripping their jumpers off, really getting into it,’ she said. 

‘We couldn’t pass and I didn’t want to go in the opposite direction and put my back to them.

‘You don’t know what to do. I said to my son ‘stand back, stand back’.

The woman then claimed one of the men pulled out a 30cm knife from his pants and slashed another on his face. 

‘I said to my son run into the shop and hide behind the counter. I was panicking,’ she said.

‘I said to the assistant ”call security, call security he’s got a knife”.’

The mother and her son hid in the store with two other shoppers and two staff as she begged them to close the doors.

The chaos began when a scuffle kicked off between two men, one armed with a knife, at the Westfield Carousel Shopping Centre in the city’s southeast at about 3.30pm on Friday (pictured are shoppers locked down in Kmart)

‘He’s closed his doors, all the other shops have closed their doors these people are carrying on fighting,’ the mother said.

‘You would think that the shops would have sirens blasting, something like that but you wouldn’t know there was something happening because it is quite a big shopping center.’

Police arrived at the complex and sent it into lockdown, with shoppers unable to leave. 

‘Cops were running up and down the elevators,’ the mother said, adding the experience had left her ‘shaken up’.

‘I wasn’t expecting him to pull out a knife,’ she said.

‘I just thought they were going to have a punch up and when he pulled the knife out I thought ”Oh my God this is going to get real now”.

The tragic events of the Bondi Junction stabbing played on her mind.

‘The last few weeks all you have heard about is stabbings or knife incidents,’ she said.

Her son is doing well but the mother has urged her children not to visit the Westfield for a while. 

‘Maybe shopping centres are going to have to put in metal detectors for something because you wouldn’t have a clue who has got something in their pockets,’ she said.

‘I am just glad we and no one around us was hurt and it wasn’t as bad as the Sydney one. It all happened all so quickly.’

A man was slashed in the face with a knife at the Westfield Carousel Shopping Centre in Cannington on Friday afternoon (stock image)

A WA Police spokesperson said ‘There is no ongoing threat to the public or further cause for alarm.

‘A number of police resources remain at the scene.’

Despite stressing there is no further danger to the public police are urging people to keep away from the scene. 

Social media users reported that shoppers were locked down in the complex and ‘told to stay quiet’.

One person claimed there was ‘blood on the ground’ and ‘lots of police’. 

Footage showed dozens of shoppers locked down in Kmart as police remain at the scene.

The latest incident comes with the nation still left reeling from the stabbing spree by lone knifeman Joel Cauchi , 40, which took the lives of six people and left a dozen more injured in Westfield’s Bondi Junction shopping centre on April 13.