Knife-wielding man kills two boys in Shanghai, injures others

A boutique of flowers left for the victims in a school knife attack in Shanghai

A man used a kitchen knife to attack three boys and a mother near a school in Shanghai yesterday, killing two of the children, police said.

They said a 29-year-old man carried out the attack at about 11:30 a.m. and was caught with the help of passersby. Two of the boys died at a hospital, the Xuhui district public security office said on its official Sina Weibo microblog page.

Another boy and the woman survived and did not have life-threatening injuries, it said.

Shortly after, a row of uniformed police stood guard on the sidewalk where the attack took place while street cleaners used sprays to hose the area down.

People gathered in small huddles and some placed bouquets of flowers against a tree and on a fence. “Child,” read a hand-written note on one bouquet of white chrysanthemums. “There is no suffering in heaven. Hope that everything will be well for you in heaven.”

Police said the man, surnamed Huang, arrived in Shanghai earlier this month and was unemployed. They said he carried out the attack “to take revenge on society.” The suspect could not be reached for comment.

Chinese law restricts the sale and possession of firearms, and mass attacks are generally carried out with knives or homemade explosives.

Perpetrators of similar attacks in the past have been described as mentally ill or bearing grudges against society.

Many of those incidents have occurred at schools, including several in 2010 in which nearly 20 children were killed, prompting a response from top government officials and leading many schools to beef up security. AP