Harry Tuttle
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Wednesday August 4, 6:40 PM
http://in.news.yahoo.com/040804/137/2fbzt.html
China kindergarten janitor stabs children, teachers
By John Ruwitch
BEIJING (Reuters) - A janitor wielding a kitchen knife stabbed 15 children and at least two teachers at a kindergarten in the Chinese capital on Wednesday, killing one child and leaving others covered in blood from their wounds.
Suspect Xu Heping, 51, put up a fight before he was captured by eight police who rushed to the kindergarten affiliated to the Peking University No. 1 Hospital, China Central Television (CCTV) reported. "This is probably the worst attack on children in the capital in decades," a CCTV report said.
One child and a teacher who sustained serious neck wounds were in critical condition, a city official and state media said. A child listed earlier as being in critical condition died of neck wounds, the official Xinhua news agency said.
A reporter saw "children stained with fresh blood and with horrified expressions" at the hospital emergency room doors, Xinhua said. The children were aged five and six.
"All medical experts with the hospital were called together to rescue the seriously wounded," the agency said.
Children and one teacher who were less badly wounded were transferred to another hospital, it said.
CCTV however said Janitor Xu had wounded three teachers.
"It was too cruel, it happened in a moment or so. The victims were just kids and I saw the bodies dangling inside the emergency cars," one woman told CCTV.
The attacker's motive was unclear and under investigation, Xinhua said.
STILL INVESTIGATING
A Beijing city government spokesman confirmed the details of the Xinhua report.
"We are still in the process of learning about the case. We still haven't received any further results," he said.
Later, the city said in a fax Xu was schizophrenic and had been treated in hospital for the mental illness.
One doctor at the Peking University No. 1 Hospital said the children were stabbed in various parts of the body.
"They had injuries all over," she said.
The doctor said it was not clear exactly how many children had been wounded because some were still undergoing surgery.
Another doctor declined to comment, saying she was too busy tending to the wounded.
Police in the central district where the attack took place also declined to comment.
In previous attacks on young children in China, police detained a doctor who ran a kindergarten after he confessed in late 2002 to putting rat poison in salt at a rival school where 70 children and two teachers fell seriously ill.
One of the worst-ever attacks on a school occurred when a gunman entered a school in the Scottish town of Dunblane in 1996 and killed 16 children and two adults.
In 1995, three young children were killed and three wounded when a man who took them hostage at a kindergarten in Russia's Caucasus region of North Ossetia threw hand grenades at them.
In Moscow in 1990, a man armed with a hatchet broke into a Ukrainian kindergarten and began swinging wildly at the children, injuring 10.
(Additional reporting by Zhou Xiqin and Niu Shuping)
http://in.news.yahoo.com/040804/137/2fbzt.html
China kindergarten janitor stabs children, teachers
By John Ruwitch
BEIJING (Reuters) - A janitor wielding a kitchen knife stabbed 15 children and at least two teachers at a kindergarten in the Chinese capital on Wednesday, killing one child and leaving others covered in blood from their wounds.
Suspect Xu Heping, 51, put up a fight before he was captured by eight police who rushed to the kindergarten affiliated to the Peking University No. 1 Hospital, China Central Television (CCTV) reported. "This is probably the worst attack on children in the capital in decades," a CCTV report said.
One child and a teacher who sustained serious neck wounds were in critical condition, a city official and state media said. A child listed earlier as being in critical condition died of neck wounds, the official Xinhua news agency said.
A reporter saw "children stained with fresh blood and with horrified expressions" at the hospital emergency room doors, Xinhua said. The children were aged five and six.
"All medical experts with the hospital were called together to rescue the seriously wounded," the agency said.
Children and one teacher who were less badly wounded were transferred to another hospital, it said.
CCTV however said Janitor Xu had wounded three teachers.
"It was too cruel, it happened in a moment or so. The victims were just kids and I saw the bodies dangling inside the emergency cars," one woman told CCTV.
The attacker's motive was unclear and under investigation, Xinhua said.
STILL INVESTIGATING
A Beijing city government spokesman confirmed the details of the Xinhua report.
"We are still in the process of learning about the case. We still haven't received any further results," he said.
Later, the city said in a fax Xu was schizophrenic and had been treated in hospital for the mental illness.
One doctor at the Peking University No. 1 Hospital said the children were stabbed in various parts of the body.
"They had injuries all over," she said.
The doctor said it was not clear exactly how many children had been wounded because some were still undergoing surgery.
Another doctor declined to comment, saying she was too busy tending to the wounded.
Police in the central district where the attack took place also declined to comment.
In previous attacks on young children in China, police detained a doctor who ran a kindergarten after he confessed in late 2002 to putting rat poison in salt at a rival school where 70 children and two teachers fell seriously ill.
One of the worst-ever attacks on a school occurred when a gunman entered a school in the Scottish town of Dunblane in 1996 and killed 16 children and two adults.
In 1995, three young children were killed and three wounded when a man who took them hostage at a kindergarten in Russia's Caucasus region of North Ossetia threw hand grenades at them.
In Moscow in 1990, a man armed with a hatchet broke into a Ukrainian kindergarten and began swinging wildly at the children, injuring 10.
(Additional reporting by Zhou Xiqin and Niu Shuping)
