4-8-2023 (SEOUL) A man has been arrested in South Korea after driving a car onto a pavement and attacking pedestrians with a knife, leaving 14 injured. The attack took place in the AK Plaza shopping centre in Seongnam City, Gyeonggi Province on Thursday, 3rd August. The suspect was arrested at the scene.
Meanwhile, another knife attack at a high school in Daedeok-gu, Daejeon, South Korea on Friday morning has left a male teacher in his 50s injured. The incident occurred around 10 am when a man in his 20s entered the school and stabbed the teacher before fleeing. The police believe that the suspect knew the victim’s identity and waited until after class to carry out the attack, indicating that he may have targeted the victim intentionally. The motive behind the attack is yet to be determined.
The police also stated today that at least 13 imitation crime threat posts appeared online immediately after the suspect committed the crime. Two of the threats were made to randomly injure people at the subway station in Bundang-gu, while the other 11 were made to commit a crime in Seoul. The police are investigating and pursuing the posters, and have increased police patrols in the relevant areas.
The first imitation crime threat post appeared online on Thursday, claiming that the poster would randomly slash people at the Ori subway station in Seongnam-si from 6 pm to 10 pm on Friday, “killing as many people as possible.” The person also said that they chose the Ori subway station because their ex-girlfriend lived in the area and they had no will to live. At 7.09 pm on Thursday, the second post appeared online, with a picture of a weapon attached, threatening to stab 20 men at the Seohyeon station on Friday. Both Ori and Seohyeon stations are located in Bundang-gu district. The police immediately launched an investigation to catch the posters, strengthened network monitoring, and sent police officers to the two stations and two other subway stations in the district to be on guard against any emergencies.
An official at Gyeonggi’s provincial fire department, Ha Dong-geun, said at least two of those who were wounded after the suspect drove the car onto the sidewalk were hospitalised in critical condition. Among the nine who were stabbed, eight were being treated for injuries seen as serious.
Photos from the scene showed forensic units examining the halls of the AK Plaza, where the stabbings 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.
South Korea’s Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper published a video on its website that it said was sent by a witness. The footage showed a man wearing sunglasses and a black hoodie walking up the mall’s escalator with an object in his hand.
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 ended up hiding inside a refrigerated storage room with some mall employees.
The National Police Agency held an online meeting with regional police chiefs to discuss ways to deal with stabbings and other attacks against random targets. Officials discussed increasing nighttime patrols in leisure districts and other crowded areas and strengthening security camera surveillance, according to the agency.
Last month, a knife-wielding man stabbed at least four pedestrians on a street in the capital, Seoul, killing one person. The authorities have not said what the motive was for the recent attack.
