A 59 year old man stabbed at least eight people Tuesday afternoon at a shopping mall in the South Korean city of Incheon, police and fire officials said. One victim was in life threatening condition and underwent surgery, the Associated Press reported.
The suspect attacked shoppers as he moved through the building before business owners and bystanders subdued him, according to Incheon’s Namdong District Police Station and witnesses. Police took him into custody and are investigating his motive.
The man’s name was not released, in keeping with South Korean practice for most criminal suspects.
What We Know So Far
The attack began at 1:40 p.m., the Justice Ministry said. Witnesses told South Korean media that the man appeared to have knives tied to both hands and stabbed people on several floors while riding an escalator up and down.
Nah Hyun joon, one of the people who helped subdue the attacker with chairs, told OBS television that he saw the man attack about four people in the second floor food court before going up to the third floor, where he stabbed at least one woman. People holding chairs blocked the man as he headed toward a fourth floor movie theater, Nah said, and he was pinned near the escalator’s third floor entrance and disarmed before police arrived. “He just went around stabbing people,” Nah said.
The injured were taken to nearby hospitals. Incheon’s fire department said a woman in her 20s underwent surgery after arriving in cardiac arrest. The department did not describe the severity of the other injuries. Yonhap News Agency, cited by Reuters, said the victims were six women and two men.
An emergency medical center was set up on the building’s first floor in case of more casualties, The Korea Times reported.
What Authorities Are Saying
The Justice Ministry said the man was required to wear an electronic monitoring anklet. He was sentenced to four years in prison for attempted murder in 2015, Yonhap reported, and was placed under monitoring in 2019 after his release. He committed no repeat offenses while under supervision, the ministry said.
Last month, the ministry said, he was booked on suspicion of carrying a weapon after he used a kitchen knife to puncture a protest sign outside a hospital where he had a dispute. He was receiving treatment for alcohol dependence and unspecified mental illnesses.
On the day of the attack, the man attended counseling from 10 to 11 a.m. and met his probation officer from 11:20 to 11:55 a.m., the ministry said. The officer confirmed he had taken his medication and had lunch with him until 12:30 p.m. Authorities detected no attempt to tamper with the monitoring device.
“We sincerely apologize over the great public concern,” the ministry said, and added that it would review both the supervision of the suspect and the broader electronic monitoring procedures.
Differing Accounts
The accounts differ on where the attack happened and how many floors it spanned. The AP, citing a witness, described stabbings in a food court on the second floor and on the third floor, with the man heading for a fourth floor theater. The Korea Times, citing the Namdong police, said the suspect attacked people between the second basement floor, where a Homeplus supermarket is located, and the second floor above ground, and called the site a supermarket building. It also described the suspect as believed to be in his 60s, while the AP gave his age as 59. On injuries, the AP said at least eight were stabbed and one woman had gone into surgery, while the Korea Times said one person was in cardiac arrest and seven were injured.
Why This Matters
The case puts South Korea’s electronic monitoring system under scrutiny. The system uses real time GPS tracking to watch high risk offenders after release, Reuters said, and covers people convicted of a range of crimes including murder. A man under that supervision, and who met his probation officer hours before, still carried out the attack. The ministry’s promised review will test whether monitoring can catch warning signs such as the weapons booking last month.
South Korea was shaken by a series of stabbing rampages in 2023 that left several people dead or injured, and in May a 17 year old girl was fatally stabbed in the southwestern city of Gwangju by a man in his 20s who was later sentenced to life in prison, Reuters reported.
What Happens Next
Police are questioning the suspect and examining the motive and the circumstances of the attack. The Justice Ministry’s review of both the supervision of this man and of electronic monitoring procedures could lead to changes. The condition of the woman who underwent surgery has not been updated.
Reporting drawn from the Associated Press, Reuters and The Korea Times
