Chongqing girl's savage attack on toddler blamed on her violent parents
Soul-searching in media over shocking incident in Chongqing, with some pointing to 10-year-old's own harsh upbringing
Revelations that the 10-year-old girl who severely beat a toddler in a Chongqing lift last month was herself subject to abuse at home has sparked a national discussion about the social causes of such violent outbursts.
The girl, wearing her backpack on her way home from school, was caught on surveillance video on November 24 snatching the one-year-old boy from a stroller as his grandmother pushed him from a lift in the building where they all live.
Once alone in the lift with the boy, the girl threw him to the ground and kicked him repeatedly. She then took him up to her flat on the 25th floor, where she continued to beat him and possibly dropped him from the balcony. The child's grandmother found him on the ground outside the building. He was in a coma.
"His head was swollen," the woman told The Beijing News. "He was covered with blood."
The brutality of the attack and the age of the suspect stunned the nation after the surveillance video was posted online last week. But, as the shock subsided, some began to wonder whether the girl's parents or society in general should share the blame.
"How did this girl let the fierce tiger hidden in her heart out of its cage?" asked The Beijing News in a commentary published with a series on the attack. "There seemed to be no motivation and hatred. Why is she so violent?"
One explanation offered by the newspaper was the admission by the girl's father that he and her mother had often beaten and scolded the girl. As a victim of violence, the girl might want to take out her anger and frustration on those weaker than her.