South Korean police yesterday detained a man suspected of stabbing a high-school teacher in Daejeon, which followed a separate, apparently random attack on Thursday in which 14 people were wounded near a subway station in Seongnam.
Officials at the Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency did not immediately release the personal details of the suspect in the attack yesterday morning on the teacher at Songchon High School, describing him only as a man in his late 20s.
The suspect waited for the teacher to step out of a classroom before stabbing him and fleeing the scene, which suggests they were acquaintances, police said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Police and fire department authorities did not specify the teacher’s health condition.
At least two people were in life-threatening conditions after Thursday’s attack in Seongnam, in which a car rammed onto a sidewalk before the driver stepped out and began stabbing people at a shopping mall linked to the Seohyeon subway station in the heart of a bustling leisure and business district.
Among the five people who were hurt by the car, at least two were in critical condition.
Among the nine who were stabbed, eight were being treated for serious injuries, Gyeonggi Province Fire Department officials said.
Police were questioning the 22-year-old suspect.
They did not identify the suspect or offer any immediate information about a potential motive.
During police interviews, the suspect talked incoherently and said he was being stalked, said Park Gyeong-won, an official at Gyeonggi’s Bundang District police station.
The suspect purchased the two knives he used in the stabbings from a different shopping mall on Wednesday, Park said.
Photographs from the scene showed forensic units examining the halls of the AK Plaza, where the attack took place.
A white Kia hatchback with a broken front window and ruptured front tire could be seen on a sidewalk near the subway station.
A witness named Hwang Hee-woon told YTN television that he “heard a sound from the first floor that seemed like a scream, so customers and shop workers were gathering on the rails of the second floor near the escalator to see what was happening below.”
“Suddenly, someone told us the person who committed the crime was coming up to the second floor, so we ran away in panic,” he said.
He hid in a refrigerated storage room with some mall employees, he said.
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