5 die in knife rampage at Chinese police station

[WhiteFeather]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25475269/

5 die in knife rampage at Chinese police station

Attacker reportedly sought revenge after being accused of bicycle theft



BEIJING - A man armed with a knife stormed a police station in Shanghai on Tuesday, stabbing at least five officers to death, authorities said.

The Shanghai Public Security Bureau said in a news release that a 28-year-old man with the surname Yang set a fire outside the building's gate and then rushed inside and began attacking officers.

Five officers died after being taken to a hospital, while four other police officers and a security guard were hurt, the statement said. Some had chest wounds and others had bloodied faces, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing a witness with the surname Yi.

Yang, who is from Beijing and unemployed, said he was seeking revenge after officers at the station in Shanghai's Zhabei district investigated him last year for allegedly stealing bicycles, police said.

Yang was taken into custody at the station.

Officers not armed?
It was not clear how the attacker managed to stab so many police officers and why he was not detained after setting a fire outside the building. Though Chinese police are permitted to carry guns, the attack took place in an office building and it was possible officers there were not armed.

A woman at the Zhabei district station referred questions to the Shanghai Public Security Bureau. Phones rang unanswered in the bureau's propaganda department.

Violent street crime is rare in China, where private gun ownership is virtually banned.

[VMJade]

Well, I guess that's one way to avoid overpopulation.

Still, too bad for the officers' families.

[lildobe]

Violent street crime is rare in China, where private gun ownership is virtually banned.

What does the rate of private gun ownership have to do with a knife attack? Why even mention it?

Then again, this DID come from MSNBC - they are fairly anti from what I've seen.

[justashooter]

violent street crime is not rare in china, but it is rarely reported. i've seen quite a bit of it in the years i spent there. the nature of the crime is different in chinese society, where there are not a lot of non-han people.

while the racial identity is intact, regional identity, and religious identity among chinese muslims and christians can be divisive. still, at the end of the day everybody is chinese. there is no black/white - them/us - perpetrator/victim stereotype.

because of this racial homogenity the crime is more personal or financial in nature. there are no "sport" killings. rape is common, violent assault not uncommon, and is accepted if the perp is drunk (often the case). robbery with knife is not rare, while pickpocketing and store theft are a major problem.

see the links below to what passes for news in china, and what the backstory is:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/as...ots/index.html
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200807a.brief.htm#004
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200806c.brief.htm#035
in this instance we have CNN telling us that a teen has been killed and that riots have ensued. we also have zona europa telling us the government side of the story in brief #4. then we have a more credible local report, which indicates that the 15 year old girl was raped by 3 classmates and drowned in a river, in brief#35. the classmates were released when relatives of one called on connections in province govt. the best pictures are in brief 28, associated with a similar story, a little further down the #35 link page. lots of smoke and fire and a throng of people in the street.

from what i have seen in china, i'm going with brief #35. this is the country that exports sanpei xiaojie to the entire far east, and sends classes of 14 year old ballet students to beijing conventions on weekends as "entertainment" to raise funds to buy the school operator a new car. this is the country where prostitution is not only accepted, but is expected.

am i against prostitution? not if the enactors are in control of the process. that being said, i have never seen a case in which they were. sure, there are TV movies and such crap in which being a whore is empowering or romantic, but i don't think that's ever real life.

well, enough tangentialism. china is a hellish place, and any kind of personal violation is possible there. that being said, the last time one of the bastards called my wife xiaolaopo (mistress), i found out just how far a skinny chinaman can fly on an uppercut.