Man stabs official in three-hour standoff
A man angry over compensation he had to pay to an accident victim rushed into a government building in Zhuhai on Thursday, stabbed an employee and became locked in a standoff with police, telling them he would detonate hidden explosives.
He was arrested after three hours and the explosives turned out to be fake, the South Metropolis Daily reported. The government official was not seriously injured.
A Zhuhai official said the man, from Guangxi province , was upset over the size of compensation a local court had ordered he pay to a person involved in a car accident he had in 2001. The man repeatedly tried to appeal to the government over the payout but was turned down.
At 10am, the man entered a district office housing the Zhuhai Municipal People's Congress, went to the second floor where the offices were located, walked inside and stabbed the official. Armed police arrived and for the next three hours were locked in a standoff with the man, who claimed he had hidden explosives in the building. A search uncovered what appeared to be explosives but these were found to be fake. Police moved in on the man and the incident ended at 1.30pm
The mainland has recently experienced a series of violent attacks on government officials and buildings by people with grievances.
In July last year, Yang Jia, an unemployed Beijing man stormed into a district police station in Shanghai armed with homemade bombs and a knife and fatally stabbed six officers.
A day later, a man lit two cooking gas bottles and drove them into a government office in Zhangjiajie , Hunan province , because he was angry at the demolition of an illegal structure he owned. Eighteen people were hurt in the blast. Both men were sentenced to death.
