Sixth officer dies after maniacal knife attack

By Yang Lifei and Zou Qi  |   2008-7-3  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

ANOTHER Shanghai police officer has died from stab wounds, becoming the sixth fatality of a frenzied attack at the Zhabei District Public Security Bureau office building on Tuesday.

The Shanghai Public Security Bureau told the Xinhua news agency it was the worst assault on the police in the history of the city.

A man armed with a knife stormed into the building after stabbing a security guard, who tried to stop him from throwing Molotov cocktails in the form of oil-filled beer bottles. He stabbed nine police officers inside.

The three other officers and the security guard were all in a stable condition in hospital, the bureau said yesterday.

According to Shanghai No. 10 People's Hospital, the officer who was stabbed in the stomach and face was pronounced dead late Tuesday night. The hospital did not supply the victim's identity.

Cai Anji, director of the Politics Department of the Ministry of Public Security, yesterday consoled the injured at hospitals and victims' families.

Security guard Gu Jianming, although receiving only minor injuries, was still under treatment yesterday at Shanghai No.1 People's Hospital.

Two police officers, Wu Yuhua and Li Wei, were in Changzheng Hospital, while a traffic officer, Wang Lingyun, was in Zhabei District Central Hospital, the bureau said.

Police said the assailant had been identified as Yang Jia, 28, an unemployed man from Beijing.

The motive for the stabbing spree is still under investigation by police, but according to Yang, it was revenge.

Yang was held and questioned by officers at the Zhabei bureau last October for allegedly stealing bicycles, according to a previous announcement by the Shanghai Public Security Bureau.

The bureau said Yang carried a hammer, a dust mask and an unlit Molotov cocktail along with the knife into the building. He set eight beer bottles on fire outside the gate of the bureau's office as a diversionary tactic and stabbed Gu when he intervened.