Man held over fatal knife attack at China kindergarten

大智

China used to take pride in its low rate of violent crime but now it has to deal with it almost every day, leading many to ask what has caused the sudden surge of apparently random attacks

[ 本帖最后由 大智 于 2010-8-5 07:40 编辑 ]

大智

Man held over fatal knife attack at China kindergarten China has been shocked by a spate of similar school attacks in recent months
A man who killed at least three children in a knife attack at a Chinese kindergarten has been arrested.
The alleged assailant, Fang Jiantang, 26, was taken into custody shortly after the attack and has confessed to his crime, state media reported.
More than 20 children and staff were hurt at the school in the eastern city of Zibo, Shandong province, on Tuesday.
The motive for the attack is not known. It is the latest in a string of similar attacks across China.
More than 27 people have died and at least 80 have been injured in knife attacks, several in schools, since the beginning of the year.
Continue reading the main story “Start Quote

China used to take pride in its low rate of violent crime but now it has to deal with it almost every day, leading many to ask what has caused the sudden surge of apparently random attacks”

End Quote Shirong Chen BBC China editor

• Alarm bells over school attacks

Nine people died in a kindergarten knife attack on 12 May. The same month, a man was sentenced to death for stabbing 29 people at a kindergarten in Jiangsu.
Badly injured The kindergarten in Zibo was attacked as parents were picking up their children at the end of the school day.
A man wielding a long knife ran amok.
Three children died at the scene, while three others and four teachers were injured and taken to hospital, city officials said in a statement.
Earlier reports said a teacher had been killed.
A local newspaper quoted parents as saying that their children's injuries were so bad they could barely recognise them.
The alleged attacker, Fang Jiantang, was detained within hours, according to Xinhua news agency.
Officers have found the murder weapon, and an investigation is under way, it reports.
Local authorities told the BBC they had nothing to say when asked to explain what had taken place, and waited more than 24 hours to confirm the details.
The BBC's correspondent in Beijing, Chris Hogg, says officials have tried to minimise media coverage of such incidents inside China to avoid the risk of copycat attacks.
Security has been increased at many schools but not all of them can afford it, our correspondent says.

crb_ares2005

some such causes are poverty ,unjustis,and unemployment

大智

By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 4, 2010; 9:46 AM

BEIJING -- A knife-wielding man rampaged through a kindergarten in the eastern city of Zibo on Tuesday, killing three children and a teacher, and wounding a dozen others in the latest in a string of a strikingly similar attacks that have left about 20 people dead, parents on edge and the country grappling for answers.
The seemingly random attacks have raised questions about the state of mental health treatment in China, and the dislocation caused by two decades of explosive economic growth and dynamic change that has left many bypassed on society's margins.
The latest attack -- the sixth since March -- followed the now-familiar pattern; the assailant, identified as a man in his 20s, had no immediately known connection to the kindergarten. He apparently mingled with parents waiting to pick up their children about 4 p.m. before he began slashing victims with a two-foot-long knife.
Some reports said the man fled the scene but later turned himself in to police. In a brief dispatch, Xinhua, the official state news agency, identified the attacker as Fang Jiantang, 26. A local lawyer who lives in Zibo, in Shangdong province, said the man was unemployed and lived about 100 yards from where the attack occurred.
According to Zibo residents reached by telephone, the attack occurred at the Boshan District Experimental Kindergarten in the Golden Phoenix Compound, a facility for government workers. A teacher at a nearby kindergarten said the school that was attacked had 40 to 50 students attending, most of them the children of local civil service workers.
Immediately after the attack, the government, in a stated effort to head off copycat attacks, imposed a news blackout, with few details filtering out through media sources. The local police, government offices and the hospital in Zibo all refused to give any details.
News of the Tuesday attack only came out Wednesday, nearly 24 hours after the fact. Chinese media Web sites during the day carried prominently displayed stories about a workplace shooting in Connecticut that left nine people dead, but not a word on the latest kindergarten attack here in China.


Even residents of Zibo said they had difficulty finding out what happened. "News about the kindergarten is blocked," said a teacher from a nearby kindergarten. "Last night, the local news didn't cover the accident. This morning, the head of our kindergarten had a meeting in the city to discuss enhanced security. But no other news was released.
"I would be lying if I said I'm not panicked," she said. "I worry a lot in my heart. But we have two full-time security guards and two part-time security guards. Besides that, our kindergarten has already installed advanced alarming system and cameras. We have three locked gates to cross to enter our kindergarten."
The director of the nearby Golden Key Kindergarten, in the same district as the school that was attacked, said, "The tragedy happened so suddenly. Parents are scared. More than 100 kids in our kindergarten didn't come today. Their parents dare not to put their kids in kindergarten now."
A local primary school in Zibo posted a notice Wednesday saying all parents had to come into the classroom to pick up their children, according to a local hairdresser whose child attends the school.
Kindergartens and primary schools across China have become heavily fortified with cameras and extra security guards since the string of attacks began March 23, when 42-year-old Zheng Minsheng, a former community doctor, burst into a primary school and stabbed eight children to death with a knife as they were lining up outside before the start of classes.

ebaodd

Big Gini Coefficient causes a social unstability.