8 Kids Stabbed to Death at Chinese School
A former medical worker allegedly stabbed to death eight young children and wounded five others Tuesday in a bloody rampage outside an elementary school in eastern China.
The 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.
AP The 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.
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And there is why the Republicans totally forget about their claimed drive to "spread democracy" when it comes to China: No doubt our right admires such examples out of China as innovative thinking on the "problem" of labor costs.
So why call him an "Ex-Doctor?" Glamorization? It's a pity CBS still has difficulty getting it right. Oh well.
Much sorrow over such a tragic situation. :(
In China couples are only allowed to have one child.
I am unsure what to say about this. I understand real problems cannot just be assuaged with more intemperate commentary or unfeeling.
If there is anything to say about so much violent actions against children as is reported in the global news this week, I am saying, there seems to be more than one type of enemy the caring civilized world should become more aware of and begin addressing.
We are inundiated with non-sympathy and impersonal indifference seeing so much negativity in our collective peripheral scope.
I believe this is a world wide issue, this is a very worrisome period of history to me. Economic, and social concerns about aggression and human worth. Life should be treated with more respect and appreciation. I understand that the very notion of my replying to this type of news item and my approach to comment is under scrutiny, and succeptible to public opinion, as public record.
I worry about why people are acting out so severely and have personal grudges.
I understand that many people in the world are not content to adjust so docile with personal loss of status.
I am sickened about the acts of violence that are so rampant in our current time. Please hold onto viewing Life as precious. My Heart goes out to the children who are victims of violence and abuse.
I read too many stories this last few days online in news items from AP about children being victimized.
I don't accept this trend as a "norm". This is unacceptable.
He deserves no mercy annd cruel and ruff treatment. I hope they put him in a 4x4 foot cell until they execute him.