Stabbings at kindergarten in Taizhou

Crowds outside the Taixing Central Kindergarten

Not even a day after yesterday's stabbing at a primary school in Leizhou, Guangdong Province, a second school stabbing incident took place this morning in Taixing, a county-level city within Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province.

China News Service reports:

At 9:40 this morning, a man wielding a knife barged into the kindergarten and stabbed 31 people: 28 children, two teachers, and one security guard. Five were seriously wounded and are in critical condition.

Witnesses told this reporter that the incident took place on the first floor of the kindergarten. The results of an official investigation have not yet been released, so bystanders, including many parents, were listening to witnesses' accounts and speculating about the assailant's motive. Some said it was revenge, others said it was out of desperation. But he was definitely a local; some parents knew where he lived and wanted to go to his home in search of answers.

The local government had set up a press reception office at the kindergarten gate. Reporters are said to be hurrying to this northern Jiangsu city that is unreachable by train.

In a later report, Xinhua adds more information:

The attacker who stabbed 31 people at the Taixing Central Kindergarten in Taixing, Jiangsu Province at 9:40 in the morning of April 29 has been identified. He is Xu Yuyuan (徐玉元), born in 1962 and is now 47 years of age. He is an unemployed Taixing local. He used to work at a local insurance company but was laid off in 2001. He previously was involved in an illegal pyramid scheme.

According to Gao Jiming, secretary of the Taizhou Party Committee of Politics and Law, 31 people are currently injured, five of them serious: two children, one guard, one teacher, and one volunteer. As of 12:20 pm there were no deaths.

The suspect Xu Yuyuan allegedly committed the crime in Classroom #2. His motive is still under investigation.