A 33-year-old man has been arrested in South Korea for fatally stabbing a girl and injuring one other shopper inside a grocery store after reportedly ingesting soju.
The person, recognized solely as A, was arrested on suspicion of homicide on Tuesday after the stabbing spree in northern Seoul, in an incident that has sparked panic amongst locals.
The suspect reportedly entered the grocery store in Mia-dong and drank almost half a bottle of soju on the spot, earlier than eradicating a kitchen knife from its packaging from the shop shelf and attacking two girls.
One of many girls, in her 60s, suffered a coronary heart assault and succumbed on the hospital, whereas a retailer worker sustained accidents within the assault.
Surveillance footage from the scene confirmed panicked customers scrambling to flee because the sufferer lay bleeding on the sidewalk, in accordance with stories.
The person, carrying hospital clothes, exited the shop and known as police to report himself, the Gangbuk Police Precinct stated. He was arrested with out resistance however allegedly requested investigators to attend in order that he may end his cigarette.
“He was so calm that nobody thought he was the attacker. When police arrived and advised him to face in opposition to the wall, he stated in an informal tone, ‘Wait, let me end this cigarette.’ And the police truly waited,” Lee Jae Gil, 61, who runs a butcher store throughout from the grocery store, advised Korea JoongAng Each day.
The police stated they had been trying into whether or not the suspect had a historical past of psychological sickness and what prompted the assault.
At a pretrial listening to on Thursday, the suspect apologised to the sufferer, including that the assault was not premeditated. “I’m sorry to the sufferer. I’ll by no means do one thing like this once more,” he stated.
Investigators stated the suspect was admitted to a close-by hospital for a finger harm. “Since he didn’t even keep a full day, we don’t actually know something about him. If he had disclosed a psychological well being problem, we might have thought of same-day discharge or utilized particular monitoring,” a hospital official advised the newspaper.
The incident triggered panic and worry among the many locals.
“You exit to purchase groceries and find yourself being stabbed to loss of life by a whole stranger. It’s terrifying,” an area was quoted by the Korea Herald as saying.
“This isn’t the Korea I do know.”
Whereas South Korea has a low homicide charge of 1.3 per 100,000 individuals – under the worldwide common of six per 100,000 – the nation has witnessed a number of high-profile violent crimes, together with a number of stabbings, lately.
Among the many violent incidents in latest months had been a instructor stabbing an eight-year-old lady within the central metropolis of Daejeon, a subway station stabbing that left one useless and three wounded, an assault on a highschool instructor, and a knife-wielding assailant driving into pedestrians earlier than attacking customers in Bundang.
