Father holds 39 pupils hostage in Jiangsu
Police disarm the knife-wielding man, said to be mentally ill
A father held his daughter and 38 primary-school classmates hostage in Jiangsu for two hours before police overpowered him. It was the fifth violent incident targeting children at mainland schools in the past two months.
Former psychiatric patient Guo Deren had been holding a girl in one hand and a chopper in the other during the two-hour standoff in Changjing township, Jiangyin city , which ended at 9.30am on Wednesday. The girl was slightly injured, the Jiangxi Times reported yesterday.
Guo's family showed police his psychiatric medication and said he had suffered mental illness four years ago. They said he had become depressed recently after his wife left him. Guo, from Lianyungang , is being checked for mental illnesses before police decide whether to charge him.
At about 7.30am on Wednesday, Guo took his daughter into the Primary One classroom, shut the door and windows and pulled out a chopper. He ordered the pupils to stay in the room.
After two hours of unsuccessful negotiations, police broke into the classroom and freed the pupils.
An official in charge of publicity in Jiangyin said: 'No blood was shed in the whole incident. It was only the man holding a chopper and yelling. He did not make any requests.'
The school's name was omitted from the report.
Mainland criminal law absolves mental patients exhibiting 'harmful behaviour' from criminal liability if they cannot control themselves, according to Sun Dongdong , a professor of forensic psychiatry at Peking University's law school. They would instead be sent for compulsory treatment, Professor Sun said.
They could still face civil suits.
The other recent incidents involved a teacher killing four pupils in Henan province , a man slashing 25 pupils at a Shandong province school, a siege involving explosives elsewhere in Jiangsu and a man stabbing a pupil dead at a Beijing kindergarten.
