Thailand Nursery Massacre: 24 Children Among 37 Slain by Former Police Officer

Discussion in 'World Events' started by Tiassa, Oct 6, 2022.

  1. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Twenty-four children are among thirty-seven dead in northeastern Thailand after a former police lieutenant rampaged with firearms and a knife through a local childcare center in Nong Bua Lamphu province.

    Following the massacre in the town of Utthai Sawan, the suspect returned home, killed his wife and son, and then himself.

    The horror of the detail is disorienting. "Some victims aged as young as two," BBC↱ reports, "were attacked as they slept."

    And while formal language might describe the killer's motive as unclear, the thirty-four year-old former cop had been fired earlier this year for drug use, and was expecting a verdict in his methamphetamine trial on Friday.

    Meanwhile, I keep stumbling over this part:

    Headteacher Nanticha Panchum said the attacker's son attended the centre but had not been there for a month.

    The man used to drop his child off, and was always polite and chatty, she said.

    Ms Panchum said there were usually more than 90 children at the school, but just over 20 were present on Thursday due to bad weather and a school bus breakdown.

    There is only grief. Outrage is incomprehensible. The context of a shotgun in a nursery is something I would rather have gone my whole life without countenance. That truth is stranger than fiction offers no comfort compared to the prospect that a killer sought more than the twenty-three children he murdered at a nursery he knew.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Fraser, Simon and Elsa Maishman. "Thailand: Many children among dead in nursery attack". BBC News. 6 October 2022. BBC.com. 6 October 2022. https://bbc.in/3RFPxYy
     
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  3. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Per CNN↱:

    The suspect had appeared in court in Nong Bua Lamphu province hours before "opening fire while the kids were sleeping," according to Maj. Gen. Jirapob Puridet of the CIB. The former officer was dismissed from duty and "charged with selling narcotics" last year, Puridet told CNN.

    His 2-year-old stepson was enrolled at the center he attacked Thursday, but was not present while the attack was carried out, according to a local police chief.

    "(The shooter) went to look for his two-year-old son, but the boy was not there … so he started shooting as well as stabbing people at the nursery," police spokesperson Maj. General Paisan Luesomboon told CNN.

    Kamrab then "managed to get into a room where 24 kids were sleeping together," killing all but one of them.

    "He also used a knife to stab both children and staff at the center," Luesomboon said.

    .... One eyewitness told Reuters she believed the attacker was coming to pick up his child. When he arrived to the center, he "didn't say anything," and "shot at the door while the children were sleeping," she said.

    Most of the deaths were the result of "stabbing wounds," Luesomboon told CNN. A statement earlier on Thursday from Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha's office office had referred to the incident as a mass shooting.

    The measure of clarification about the context of a shotgun in a nursery fails to alleviate particular aspects of horror. And to add a question of where the killer thought the boy was feels like a sick rumor of a nasty plot twist.

    Or, perhaps, simply grief. Details will emerge as they do, but there is no promise that anything about what has happened will make any sort of psychomoral or semiotic sense. Some plot twists aren't; instead, they are simply how the story goes. A nursery massacre, for instance. That story will go as it goes, and the rest of us are just along for the nightmare.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Olarn, Kocha, Hannah Ritchie, and Heather Chen. "Children among at least 36 people killed in child care center massacre in Thailand". CNN. 6 October 2022. CNN.com. 6 October 2022. https://cnn.it/3V92M6P
     
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