Man injures 5 children with hammer, sets himself ablaze in latest China school attack
12 replies, posted
[url]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704302304575215303285744386.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us[/url]
[release]BEIJING—Chinese authorities took measures to contain public concern and step up security after the third attack on a school in as many days left five children and a teacher injured and the assailant dead.
The recent incidents, which have drawn world-wide attention, threaten to cast a shadow over the lavish celebrations planned to mark the official start of the Expo 2010 Shanghai, which is intended to showcase China's economic and social development.
Propaganda authorities have ordered domestic media not to feature stories on the attacks prominently and discouraged original reporting, instructing media to follow Xinhua's dispatches, according to people familiar with the directives. It wasn't clear if the move was intended to stem concerns over social tensions ahead of the Shanghai Expo or to prevent further "copycat" crimes against schoolchildren.
In the latest rampage, five kindergarten students and a teacher at the Shangzhuang Primary School in the Shandong province city of Weifang were injured in an attack by a man wielding an iron hammer who then set himself on fire, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The alleged attacker, identified by police as Wang Yonglai, a local farmer, died at the scene, Xinhua said, and the five children were reported to be in stable condition Friday afternoon.
An official in the news department of the Weifang government directed questions about the incident to the local foreign affairs office, which couldn't be reached for comment Friday.
Friday's assault occurred one day after a man injured 29 children and three adults in a knife attack at a kindergarten in Taixing city in Jiangsu province and two days after a separate stabbing spree in which fifteen students at a primary school in Guangdong were knifed by a former teacher at another school. Last month, a former doctor knifed eight students to death at a school in Fujian province. He was executed on Wednesday, hours before the attack in Guangdong.
The unusual series of attacks has prompted widespread fears among parents and spurred authorities to add security measures at schools.
Chinese media reports on Friday largely focused on the campaign to improve school safety and offered few details of the latest incidents in Shandong and Jiangsu. But there were also some expressions of worry about how the attacks might reflect broader problems within China's society.
An editorial in the independent-minded Southern Metropolis Daily criticized the overemphasis on school safety, given the difficulty of predicting calamity. "Unless one lives in a vacuum, there is no such thing as absolute safety," it said. "Although we cannot place on society the full responsibility that should be borne by the criminal suspect, at least establish this: If society is less troubled, we will be safer, and children will also be safer."
An online survey on Chinese Web portal Sohu.com suggested that factors in society were to blame. By Friday afternoon, 69% of more than 17,000 respondents shared the view that the school attacks were related to local government behavior, agreeing with the statement that if local authorities "emphasized building up people's livelihoods and de-emphasized face-giving projects, allowing ordinary people to live more comfortably, no one would commit murder."
"If the current society doesn't change … this type of incident will continue to take place, and will ultimately lead to social instability," wrote one commenter on Sohu.com.
The Ministry of Education issued an emergency notice Thursday requiring all schools and educational authorities to take steps to prevent further violent incidents, cooperate with public security organs and increase vigilance at school entrances to keep strangers out.
Xinhua reported that police cars were seen patrolling near schools in major cities such as Beijing, Chengdu and Hangzhou. In Beijing's Xicheng district, police provided nearly 100 schools with large steel "forks"—curved bars mounted on two-meter-long poles—designed to keep potential attackers at bay, said Dong Zhendong, head of the district's school security.
In the central China city of Changsha, parents at Wangyuehu No. 2 Primary School established a volunteer security team to patrol the campus in shifts and the school has stockpiled wooden sticks near its gate in case of attack, said Ma Jishun, the school's Communist Party secretary. Changsha's education authorities plan to add security guards and surveillance cameras in all city schools by the end of the year, he added.
After Wednesday's Guangdong incident, "parents became very worried about the issue of students' safety," said Mr. Ma, whose eight-year-old daughter attends the school. "We are so frightened by these cases."[/release]
Finally, a story about kids getting hammered with a Wang that doesn't involve priests!
What is happening to China's schools?
That guy sounds [i]Hot[/i] to me.
the fuck is with china and killing children at schools
you crazy china
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhknaG9ifbs[/media]
(From the ColdSteel thread)
[url]http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=21650501&postcount=76[/url]
It seems he wasn't kidding.
This is just a fad... it'll go away :/
[editline]06:05PM[/editline]
Poor kids
[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;21655055]This is just a fad... it'll go away :/
[editline]06:05PM[/editline]
Poor kids[/QUOTE]
School shootings were a big fad for a while too.