Man stabs 28 children at kindergarten in China

[cory777]

Source: AP

BEIJING – A knife-wielding man attacked a kindergarten class of 4-year-olds in eastern China on Thursday, slashing 28 children in the third such rampage at a Chinese school in a month.

The three stabbings have been part of 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. One sociologist said the attacks may happen in clusters, with one assailant triggering copycat attackers.

Five of the students injured Thursday were in critical condition in the hospital in Jiangsu province, said Zhu Guiming, an official with the propaganda department in Taixing city. Zhu said two teachers and a security guard at Zhongxin Kindergarten also were hurt in the attack, which happened early in the school day.

The suspect was identified as Xu Yuyuan, 47, who had been jobless since being fired from an insurance company in 2001, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100429/ap_on_re_as/as_china_students_attacked

[SkyDaddy7]

1. That is insane!

That exceeds a typical American school shooting!

[Ian David]

2. Typical American school shootings involve kids old enough to know to run away.

I also suspect that Chinese schools provide more children per square foot.

[marshall]

3. I think we will be seeing a rise in strange behavior in China

Sociologists have predicted for some time that the one child policy coupled with gender prefercing family planning is producing a generation that is gender unbalanced. That kind of unnatural dynamic has got to have social consequences.

[ima_sinnic]

4. I think immediately of the "unnatural dynamic" of the mutineers from the Bounty

after they sailed away with Fletcher Christian, they went back to Tahiti to reunite and pair off with women they'd met before--but not every guy ended up with a woman. They sailed off, eventually winding up on Pitcairn Island, but with too few women--the ensuing years were not kind to those with no woman, and it caused a lot of infighting and, I believe, some murders.

[AngryAmish]

5. Because the Cultural Revolution was such normal behavior....

No, China is a large nation (some might even be so bold as to say it is the largest nation by population) and it has about it's fair share of nutballs. We hear about these things more with modern newsgathering processes and less repression than before.

[Uncle Joe]

6. While their huge population would insure their fair share of "nutballs," I wonder if the

pressure from living in a nation with such an extreme population density has in itself created a form of PTSD, thereby increasing the natural percentage of people with mental illness?

Imagine living in the United States with four+ times the number of people and the stress that would create.

[BlueIris]

7. Three of these incidents in one month?

Horrifying.

[Bluebear]

8. Man stabs 28 children at kindergarten in China

Source: AP

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


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100429/ap_on_re_as/as_china_students_attacked

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Inutterably sad.

[Supply Side Jesus]

9. My god...

Good thing he didn't have a gun!

[depakid]

12. If he had, the death toll would have been one hell of a lot higher than it was

[elocs]

10. Posted here in LBN at 4:02 this morning:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4360970

[scarletwoman]

11. What the hell is the deal with knife-wielding Chinese men going after schoolchildren?

How many of these kinds of incidents have happened over recent years? Adult men attacking small children -- what kind of horrible psychological imbalance brings about such behavior?

It seems like a very strange phenomena peculiar to China. I can't help but wonder if it might have some connection to China's "one child" policy of the last few decades, even though I know that's just wild speculation. It's just such a weird response to psychological stress.

Those poor traumatized children... :cry:

[Jennicut]

13. I have no idea why this guy did it but it makes me think of the security at my daughters' schools.

Essentially, there is not a lot. Locked doors is about it. Maybe that would be enough but people go in and out of the elementary school a lot without a security person being there. I have one in nursery school and one in kindergarten.

[Nihil]

14. Had the same feeling when Dunblane happened ...

There were a lot of parents hugging their kids at pick-up time that afternoon ...
:cry: :hug: