Thread: Man stabs, kills 8 children at Chinese school

Man stabs, kills 8 children at Chinese school
Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press Writer – 52 mins ago

BEIJING – A former medical worker stabbed to death eight young children and wounded five others Tuesday in a bloody rampage outside an elementary school in eastern China.

The 41-year-old attacker struck in the morning as students arrived for classes, mingling with parents at the school gates before suddenly pulling out his knife and slashing children, according to witnesses interviewed on local television.

In the aftermath, doctors treated small children and bodies lay covered in bloody sheets after the attack at Nanping City Experimental Elementary School in Fujian province. Police officers manned a cordon around the school. Some comforted distraught parents.

China has witnessed a series of school attacks in recent years, most blamed on people with personal grudges or suffering from mental illness, leading to calls for improved security.

The rampage in Nanping was finally stopped by passers-by and school security guards and the attacker was arrested, the reports said. The suspect was identified as Zheng Minsheng, 41.

Zheng worked as a senior nurse in a community clinic before resigning last June, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing Huang Zhongping, spokesman for the Nanping city public security bureau.

Zheng was known to have a history of mental illness, said a man surnamed Wu in the Nanping city government office, who would not give his full name as is common among Chinese officials.

An unidentified former co-worker interviewed on Fujian television said Zheng was "difficult to get along with."

Eight children were killed, and five were being treated at a hospital, Wu said. Six died at the scene, which was smeared with blood from the sidewalk to the floor of an inner reception room.

The victims' ages were not immediately known, but Chinese elementary schools typically have students ages 6 to 12.

The school was closed and students were sent home for the day. Counseling will be provided for students when classes resume Wednesday, Xinhua said.

Recent school attacks include a July 2007 assault in which a mentally ill man wielding a wrench wounded 18 children and a teacher in a kindergarten in southern China before fleeing on a motorcycle and trying to stab himself to death.

In June the same year, a man slashed four students, wounding one seriously, in a high school in the southeastern city of Fuzhou, while elsewhere, police shot dead a suspected mentally ill man who threatened to blow up a school in southern China with dynamite.

China's worst such incident in March 2001 destroyed a schoolhouse and killed at least 42 people, most of them children. Officials blamed a mentally ill man who charged into the school in Jiangxi province with a bag full of dynamite. Parents disputed that, claiming their children had been forced to make fireworks at the school.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100323/...5zdGFic2tpbGw-

Man stabs 28 children at kindergarten in China
By Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press Writer 43 mins ago

TAIXING, China – The screams of the 4-year-olds inside the kindergarten could be heard out in the street. When people ran in to investigate, they found what one witness said was a scene "too horrible to imagine" — blood everywhere as a knife-wielding man slashed 28 children, two teachers and a security guard Thursday in the second such school attack in China in two days.

Experts called it a copycat rampage triggered by similar incidents Wednesday and last month. They said the wave of school attacks falls amid poor care for the mentally unstable and growing feelings of social injustice in the fast-changing country.

Thursday's attack at the Zhongxin Kindergarten left five students hospitalized in critical condition in the eastern city of Taixing, said Zhu Guiming, an official with the municipal propaganda department. Two teachers and the security guard were also hurt.

The official Xinhua News Agency identified the attacker as Xu Yuyuan, a 47-year-old unemployed man using an eight-inch (20-centimeter) knife. No motive was given.

A witness to the early morning attack said people outside heard screams coming from the three-story building and rushed inside.

"It was too horrible to imagine. I saw blood everywhere, and kids bleeding from their heads," a visibly shaken Hu Tao told The Associated Press hours later.

"Some of them could not open their eyes because of the blood," he said.

Hu, who owns a small restaurant across the street from the school, said a delivery man used a fire extinguisher to knock Xu down.

Set in a sidestreet off the main avenue of the heavily industrialized city, the kindergarten has a whimsical European-style castle turret rising above its gate and a cartoon-like bunny by the entrance, which was sealed off by police tape.

Most of the recent school invasions have been blamed on people with personal grudges or suffering from mental illness, leading to calls for improved security.

Accounts in China's state-owned media have glossed over motives and largely shied away from why schools have so often been targets. Yet experts say outbursts against the defenseless are frequently due to social pressures.

An avowedly egalitarian society only a generation ago, China's headlong rush to prosperity has sharpened differences between haves and have-nots, and the public health system has atrophied even as pressures grew.

"We must create a more healthy and just society," said Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor at Renmin University in Beijing.

While it's not known if Thursday's attacker knew about previous school stabbings, Zhou said such sensational, violent acts often draw copycats.

"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," Zhou said.

On Wednesday, a man in the southern city of Leizhou broke into a primary school and wounded 15 students and a teacher in a knife attack.

That attack came the same day a man was executed for stabbing eight children to death outside their elementary school last month in the southeastern city of Nanping.

China likely has about 173 million adults with mental health disorders, and 158 million of them have never had professional help, according to a mental health survey in four provinces jointly done by Chinese and U.S. doctors that was published in the medical journal The Lancet in June.

The attack in March shocked China because eight children died and the assailant had no known history of mental illness. At his trial, Zheng Minsheng, 42, said he killed because he had been upset after being jilted by a woman and treated badly by her wealthy family. He was executed Wednesday, just a little over a month after his crime.

After a 2004 attack at a school in Beijing that left nine students dead, the central government ordered tighter school security nationwide. Regulations that took effect in 2006 require schools to register or inspect visitors and keep out people who have no reason to come inside.

The man in Wednesday's attack managed to slip into the school with a group of visiting teachers, Xinhua reported. Chen Kangbing had been a teacher himself. Xinhua said he suffered from mental illness and had been on sick leave since February 2006.

The attack left fourth and fifth graders with stab wounds on their heads, backs and arms, but none was in life-threatening condition.

The Ministry of Education did not immediately respond to a fax Thursday asking whether this week's attacks would lead to changes in school security.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100429/...5zdGFiczI4Y2g-

7 children killed at China school in latest attack
By Alexa Olesen, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 12 mins ago

HANZHONG, China – A man charged into a kindergarten in northwestern China with a cleaver Wednesday and hacked to death seven children and two adults — the fifth such rampage in less than two months. The attacker then went home and killed himself.

The assault, which left 11 other children hospitalized, occurred despite heightened security countrywide, with gates and cameras installed at some schools and additional police and guards posted at entrances.

It was not clear if security had been increased at the school on the outskirts of Hanzhong, a relatively poor area in the heart of China. Images taken from local TV and posted online showed the school, which only had about 20 students, in a tumble-down, two-story farmhouse.

Sociologists say the recent attacks that have left 17 dead and scores wounded reflect the tragic consequences of ignoring mental illness and rising stress resulting from huge social inequalities in China's fast-changing society.

"The perpetrators have contracted a 'social psychological infectious disease' that shows itself in a desire to take revenge on society," said Zhou Xiaozheng of Beijing's Renmin University.

"They pick children as targets because they are the weakest and most vulnerable," Zhou said.

Wednesday's carnage started as class was beginning at 8:20 a.m. at the private Shengshui Temple Kindergarten, the local government said.

The assailant, identified as 48-year-old Wu Huanming, entered the kindergarten and killed school administrator Wu Hongying and a student on the spot, then began hacking at the 18 others, according to the city government's statement.

Six students and Wu Hongying's 80-year-old mother died later in the hospital of their wounds, it said. None of the 11 hospitalized survivors was in immediate danger.

Wu is a common Chinese surname, and it wasn't clear if the assailant and administrator were related.

Citing the police, the official Xinhua News Agency said Wu Huanming had rented his house to Wu Hongying for the kindergarten without government approval. He then demanded the property back, but Wu Hongying had asked to hold onto it until the children went on summer vacation.

The ages of the children killed were not disclosed, but kindergarten students would typically be 5 or younger. Xinhua said they were five boys and two girls.

The recent attacks are classic "copycat crimes," the effects of which may be amplified by media coverage, Zhou said.

Boosting security at schools would provide only a temporary solution unless the root problems of social injustice and economic inequality are addressed, he said.

It's also difficult to protect so many places.

About 500 kindergartens, primary and high schools in Beijing have hired more than 2,000 professional security guards to increase safety, said He Gang, a police officer at the Beijing Public Security Bureau. Thousands more guards are needed for the city's remaining 4,500 kindergartens, primary and high schools, He said.

Early reports on Wednesday's attack were removed from Chinese websites or moved to less prominent pages. There was no mention of it on state television's national evening news report — which instead announced an urgent directive from the education and public security ministries to further protect schools.

State media have steered clear of examining what might be motivating school attackers, preferring to focus on security.

The government has sought to show it has the problem under control, mindful especially of worries among middle-class families who, limited in most cases to one child due to population control policies, invest huge amounts of money and effort to raise their offspring.

Recent scandals in which children have been the main victims have sparked public anger and occasional protests, such as when at least 3,000 children across China were found to have lead poisoning from polluting factories built too close to villages, and more than 300,000 infants were sickened by tainted baby milk powder.

The Hanzhong city government vowed to "leave no stone unturned, learn from the mistakes, and strictly ensure nothing happens like this again."

The city government said about 2,000 police officers and security guards had been assigned to patrol public schools, kindergartens and surrounding areas beginning last week. The city has a population of nearly 4 million.

Parents and grandparents waiting to pick up children at schools in Beijing and Shanghai said they were reassured by the increased security.

"When we hear about those attacks on children, all parents worry. We don't let the child walk home alone," said Guo Xiumei, 52, waiting to pick up her 7-year-old grandson at Beijing's Yonganli Elementary School. Two police officers and a pair of security guards flanked the downtown school's tall metal gate.

In Shanghai, a father waiting in his car outside the Aiguo Elementary School, where a single uniformed policeman stood watch at the gate, said he would adjust his work schedule to drop off and pick up his daughter.

"Who knows how those people think? They shouldn't take out their dissatisfaction with society on innocent children. It's not fair," said the man, who gave only his surname, Su.

The string of assaults began with an attack on a primary school in March in the city of Nanping, where eight children were slashed to death by a former doctor with a history of mental health problems.

The man convicted for that crime was executed April 28, the same day a 33-year-old former teacher broke into a primary school in the southern city of Leizhou and wounded 15 students and a teacher with a knife.

The following day, in the city of Taixing, a 47-year-old unemployed man with a knife wounded 29 kindergarten students — five seriously — plus two teachers and a security guard.

Hours later, a farmer hit five elementary students with a hammer in the eastern city of Weifang before burning himself to death.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100512/...attacked/print

Chinese school killings still a mystery, but theories are starting to surface
1 hr 29 mins ago

In the latest in a disturbing series of violent incidents targeting schoolchildren, a rural Chinese man used a cleaver to hack to death seven children and two adults in a kindergarten before returning home to kill himself. This marks the fifth attack on schoolchildren in China in two months; all told, the incidents have claimed the lives of 18 people — almost all children — and left almost 80 wounded, according to Reuters.

All five attacks have been perpetrated by middle-aged men using knives or tools (China has outlawed handguns for citizens), and some of the men had children of their own. The attacker in this case, 48-year-old Wu Huanming, was described as a prosperous, well-liked member of the village, who got into a property dispute with the owners of the privately run school before going on the killing spree, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The bizarre spate of violence against young children has people scrambling for explanations. The New York Times notes that the Chinese government has told local media to downplay the attacks, in part perhaps to reduce the risk of copycat crimes. But some Chinese publications have editorialized against the news blackout, contending that reporting on the incidents will give schools and parents better chances of safeguarding children. Still, press protests are short-lived under communist rule in China; today "most local media did not cover the story," according to ABC News, and the few outlets that did removed their stories on the killings this morning.

Meanwhile, the government has vowed to step up security around schools. "We insist on striking hard and on strict protection," officials at the Ministry of Public Security said during a video conference, according to Reuters. "Strike so that criminals won't dare touch children, and protect so that they cannot touch children."

Still, the debate over the sort of official measures doesn't explain why these incident are occurring in the first place. Here's a quick roundup of some leading theories

Social inequality

Many sociologists say the widening gap between rich and poor in China's exploding economy may be leading to social frustration that results in violence. "Society needs to show concern towards those who are having problems coping with economic pressures, and the government needs to take more measures to make our society more equitable and fair," professor Li Lulu of China People's University told ABC News.

China's rapid pace of change can leave individual citizens feeling bewildered and untethered, experts suggest — especially if those people are being left behind economically. "In the past 30 years, China has seen drastic social change, and people now pay too much attention to the material while neglecting spiritual development," Ma Ai, a professor of criminal psychology at the China University of Politics and Law, told the New York Times. "We believe a rapidly changing social environment has a huge influence on people's personalities. That's the deeper correlation we should attend to."

Ignored, and untreated, mental illness

Michael Phillips, executive director of the World Health Organization's Collaborating Center for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention, says the focus on children suggests the perpetrators are mentally ill. "By killing little kids, the most valued elements of society, you're rejecting the most basic of social norms," Phillips told the Wall Street Journal. "It's an utter rejection of humanhood. It really makes you think it's more than someone who's just angry."

Mental illness is still very stigmatized in the country — even though 17 percent of the Chinese population suffers from some sort of mental illness, according to a study by Phillips. Only 5 percent of those people received treatment, leaving many mentally ill Chinese struggling with undiagnosed symptoms on their own.

Hostility to the government

An editorial in a local newspaper, Dahe Bao, blamed government officials for the attack, the New York Times reports. "After being treated unfairly or being bullied by the authorities, and unable to take revenge on those government departments that are safeguarded by state security forces, killers have to let out their hatred and anger on weaker people, and campuses have become the first choice," said the editorial.

Al Jazeera reporter Melissa Chan says that some Chinese observers say the attacks may be symptomatic of the wider powerlessness that Chinese citizens feel in the face of a remote and unresponsive state bureaucracy. "A lot of people online have been talking about the possibility that there is very little recourse in China if someone has a grievance," Chan said. "Perhaps this has become a way for somebody with a grievance to attract attention to their particular issue."

Indeed, some observers suggest the attacks could be intended to convey a political message, by seeking to discredit the government's ability to protect its own citizens. "These cases pose a challenge to the government because it's being criticized for its weak social administration," Ma Ai told the NewYork Times. "The government may be blamed if it can't protect its citizens — especially vulnerable children. I think these attacks are more and more like terrorism."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/201005...luZXNlc2Nob28-

Children in China school attack were as young as 3
By Alexa Olesen, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 22 mins ago

HANZHONG, China – Children as young as 3 years old were among the victims targeted in an attack at a kindergarten in northwestern China that killed seven toddlers and two adults, a doctor said Thursday.

The attacker who charged into the kindergarten Wednesday and hacked at his victims with a cleaver was also a familiar figure to them, said another doctor. The killer, 48-year-old Wu Huanming, committed suicide at home following the attack.

The assault, which left 11 other children hospitalized, was China's fifth such school rampage in less than two months, and occurred despite heightened security countrywide, with gates and cameras installed at some schools and additional police and guards posted at entrances.

The attacks have raised concerns about the rising emotional stress in China's high-pressure, rapidly changing society, along with a dire lack of infrastructure to diagnose and treat severe mental illness.

It was not clear if security had been increased at the private Shengshui Temple Kindergartens on the rural outskirts of Hanzhong, an industrial city of nearly 4 million people. Images taken from local TV and posted online portrayed the school, which only had about 20 students, as a tumble-down, two-story farmhouse.

"We've never seen anything like this before, never," said Zhao Fangling, a doctor overseeing care for six of the most seriously wounded survivors at the 3201 Hospital in Hanzhong. The other five survivors were being treated at a separate hospital.

The four boys and two girls under Zhao's care were between the ages of 3 and 6-1/2. He said they were in stable condition in intensive care with head wounds.

"When we saw the mothers in pain who had lost their children, all of us were in tears," said Zhao, himself visibly shaken.

Another hospital official, Cui Xiangbin, said the killer was known to the children.

"The children all knew him, they saw him every day. I can't describe how it made me feel when I heard about the scene, I felt terrified and my heart went cold," Cui said.

The carnage started as class was beginning Wednesday, the local government said.

It said Wu entered the kindergarten and killed school administrator Wu Hongying and a student on the spot, then began hacking at the 18 others, according to a city government statement.

Six students and Wu Hongying's 80-year-old mother died later in the hospital of their wounds, it said. None of the 11 hospitalized survivors was in immediate danger.

Wu is a common Chinese surname, and it wasn't clear if the assailant and administrator were related.

Citing the police, the official Xinhua News Agency said Wu Huanming had rented his house to Wu Hongying for the kindergarten without government approval. He then demanded the property back, but Wu Hongying had asked to hold onto it until the children went on summer vacation.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100513/...xkcmVuaW5jaA--

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

Children in China school attack were as young as 3[i]


Citing the police, the official Xinhua News Agency said Wu Huanming had rented his house to Wu Hongying for the kindergarten without government approval. He then demanded the property back, but Wu Hongying had asked to hold onto it until the children went on summer vacation.


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All that over property, sick