Man in China stabs 28 children!
KNIFE-WIELDING MAN HARMS 28 KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN, by Lauren Frayer AOL.com
JIANGSU, China – A knife-wielding man stormed into a kindergarten in eastern China and wounded 28 children, most of them only 4 years old, in the country’s second such school attack in as many days and fourth in less than two months. Two teachers and a security guard were also hurt in today’s attack in Jiangsu province. Five of the children are in critical condition at a hospital, state media reported.
China has seen a surge in violent assaults on innocent schoolchildren in recent years, prompting calls for tougher security at school buildings. Most of the attacks are blamed on people with mental problems or personal grudges. Experts also say such assaults can happen in clusters, with the first attack triggering copycats. Authorities detained a 47-year-old man in today’s attack. State media described him as being unemployed after being fired from an insurance company in 2001.
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The man burst into a classroom at the Zhongxin Kindergarten in Taixing city, waving an 8-inch knife, and reportedly stabbed a security guard who tried to stop him. On Wednesday, another suspect broke into a primary school in southern Guangdong province and stabbed 15 students and a teacher in their heads, backs and arms. That man is also in police custody, state media said, quoting authorities as saying he’s mentally ill and has been on sick leave from his job since 2006.
The same day, a 42-year-old man was executed by firing squad after being convicted of stabbing to death eight children on March 23 outside their elementary school in eastern Fujian province. At trial, the man admitted to killing them and said he was distraught over breaking up with his girlfriend. And two weeks ago, a mentally ill man hacked to death a second-grader and an elderly woman with a meat cleaver outside a school in southern Guangxi, and also wounded five people.
It’s unclear whether any of the assailants knew of the previous attacks and were compelled because of them. But a sociology professor at Renmin University in Beijing said such violent attacks often happen one after another. “It’s like suicide, which is another type of mental health problem that can spread in a community,” Zhou Xiaozheng told The Associated Press. “Normally, with these kind of violent events we hope the media won’t blow them up too much. Because that tends to make it spread.”
As many as 173 million Chinese adults suffer from mental disorders, and the vast majority of them have never received treatment, according to joint research by Columbia University and Chinese psychiatrists, published in the Lancet medical journal last summer. Mental illness carries a heavy social stigma in China. Despite this string of recent school attacks, violent crime sprees remain relatively rare in China. Gun control is widespread, and most attacks involve knives instead.
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