SHANGHAI – Four people were fatally stabbed at a major Shanghai hospital this morning, local police said, before the knife-wielding attacker was shot and subdued by officers.
Huangpu district police said on social media that they received emergency reports at 11.30am today of a stabbing at downtown Ruijin hospital.
“Th police quickly arrived on the scene and discovered a man holding a group of people hostage with a knife on the hospital’s seventh floor,” the statement said.
“When the suspect intended to injure the hostages and punish the police, the police decisively fired a shot to injure and subdue him.”
Four members of the public were being treated for wounds and are “not in a life-threatening condition”, the statement added.
At present, the attacker’s motive remains unclear.
Chinese media published videos showing armed police officers attempting to break into a locked room in the hospital.
Another heavily circulated social media video showed over a dozen distressed members of the public running out of the building.
About 1 hour ago, an indiscriminate hospital massacre has been occurring in Shanghai 瑞金醫院. The suspect still not caught
— Donna 3.0??? (@DonnaWongHK) July 9, 2022
Doctors, patients, even children are slashed. Dozens are injured, the death toll is unknown#AmazingChina pic.twitter.com/jMi6j4uTcJ
Mass violent crime is rare in China, which strictly prohibits citizens from owning firearms, but knife attacks do happen occasionally.
Last month, a 23-year-old man in the eastern city of Ningbo died after being violently stabbed on the street in broad daylight.
Video of the attack near a bus stop went viral on social media.
In recent years, a string of fatal knife attacks targeting kindergarten and school students have occurred nationwide, carried out by people reportedly wishing to wreak revenge on society. – AFP, July 9, 2022
