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When we read that a man had taken a 4 year-old girl hostage at a Putuo district KFC yesterday afternoon, we wrongly assumed that it would was just some loony, maybe an institution escapee that would be quickly overpowered by bystanders or the police—problem solved. Not quite so.
The incident started around 2:50pm and lasted about seven hours, with police cordoning off the area while they attempted to negotiate with the hostage taker. The latter appeared to be a man in his 40s armed with a knife. According to a Xinhua report (in Chinese), around 9:40 that evening the man started to get nervous; he held the girl's neck and raised the knife—and that's when they shot him. The identity, motives, mental health status and relation of the hostage taker to the girl still remain unknown.
You can check out pictures from the wires here.
Update: We found some video news reports and more pictures: video and pictures from 163.com (eyewitness video, but nothing really happens), and a news report from Phoenix TV (broadcast before the end of the incident, no mention of anyone being shot).
Photo from Xinhua net.com
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So, why'd he do it? Any word?
Back when I was in Shenzhen, this guy grabbed an eight-year-old and there was a big standoff with the police. That guy demanded money and a vehicle. He was eventually shot too. Afterward, the little boy cried, and I remember the papers quoted the boy, who was called MaoMao as saying, "But how can I cry? Am I not a man?"
> So, why'd he do it? Any word?
Besides the usual speculation of "mental illness", there was no word on the most interesting part of the story. Ahh, Chinese reporters...
Micah, would you rather have reporters and channels spending days of "reporting" on speculating on the motivation without any concrete evidence?
I think what Micah wants to see is not speculation but some due diligence, some follow-up investigation. Fair enough to me.