On June 28, 2018, in the Xuhui District of Shanghai, China, three boys and a female parent were stabbed with a knife near the gate of the West Campus of the Shanghai World Foreign Language Primary School[note 1] at Pubei Road, Shanghai. Two boys who attended died, and another student and parent were injured.[3] The suspect, Huang Yichuan, was arrested by the Procuratorate the next day.[4]
| 2018 Shanghai knife attack | |
|---|---|
 Shanghai World Foreign Language Primary School, East Campus | |
| Native name | 上海浦北路持刀杀人案 |
| Location | Pubei Road, Kangjian New Village Subdistrict, Xuhui District, Shanghai, China |
| Coordinates | 31°9′21.17″N 121°24′55.51″E / 31.1558806°N 121.4154194°E |
| Date | June 28, 2018 11:31 a.m.（Time of the police reception） (UTC+8) |
| Target | Students and their parents at Elementary school |
Attack type | Knife attack, school attack |
| Weapons | Kitchen knife |
| Deaths | 2 |
| Injured | 2 |
| Perpetrators | Huang Yichuan |
No. of participants | 1 |
| Motive | Possible misanthropy, and/or mental illness[1] |
On December 6, 2018, the first trial of the case was held. The murder was found to be the result of the defendant's hopelessness for life and his desire for revenge on society. The prosecutor pointed out that Huang Yichuan had schizophrenia.[1] On May 23, 2019, The First Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai decided that Huang's mental illness did not affect his ability to control his own behavior. The court then imposed the death penalty, as well as depriving his political rights for life.[5] On December 30, 2019, the Shanghai Senior People's Court rejected the appeal on Huang Yichuan's ruling, upheld the original judgment, and submitted it to the Supreme People's Court for approval.[6] On December 3, 2020, Huang Yichuan was executed.[7]
Description of the attack
editAt 11:31 a.m. on June 28, the Xuhui Branch of Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau received a phone call, saying that a man with a kitchen knife had cut three boys and a female parent near the sidewalk of Guilin West Street[note 1] on Pubei Road.[citation needed] With the help of others at the scene of the attack, the police arrested Huang Yichuan, the assailant, and sent the injured victims to the hospital.[8] By noon on June 28, two of the boys had died.[3] At 1:50 p.m., the Xuhui police issued a call for information.[9] According to a number of netizens, the site of the attack was found to be near the gate[3][9] of the West Campus of the Shanghai World Foreign Language Primary School.
According to a video uploaded by netizens, the two boys fell to the ground after being stabbed. There was a lot of blood at the scene, and some people used towels to stop the children's bleeding. A kitchen knife was also seen on the ground.[10] A number of people at the scene, including the staff of city management, held Huang Yichuan down to prevent his escape, and a passing air conditioner repairman tied him up with a rope.[10] After the police arrived, Huang was arrested and offered no resistance during the entire process.[9]
One of the students, known only as Tan, was confirmed to have died from injury to the central nervous system and hemorrhagic shock due to the stabbing. The other student who died, known as Fei, died of a brain injury and hemorrhagic shock, due to the stabbing of his head, face, and left palm. The third student, Jin, and the parent, Zhang, only suffered minor head injuries.[5]
Identity of the perpetrator
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According to an examination of the First Branch of Shanghai People's Procuratorate, the criminal suspect, Huang Yichuan, male, was unemployed at the time of the attack.[11] He claimed that after a failure to find employment in many places,[11] he went to Shanghai in early June 2018. After arriving, Huang came up with the idea to take revenge on society through murder. On the morning of June 28, he set out from his hotel with a stainless-steel kitchen knife and took a bus to Guilin West Street near the World Foreign Language Primary School. At about 11 a.m., he saw three students and a parent leaving the school. To avoid the security patrol at the school gate, he followed the group and stabbed them about 130 meters away from the school gate.[3]
After the incident, his personal information was exposed through Human flesh search engine. According to a screenshot of Huang Yichuan's basic personal information that circulated on the Internet, he was born on June 3, 1989, in Hunan Province Suining County, and had been a student in the school of architecture of Hunan University of Science and Technology (HUST).[9] Some students at HUST confirmed that Huang Yichuan had previously studied with them at HUST. They also mentioned that he had antisocial tendencies when he was a university student. When Huang graduated from the college, he left many threatening messages on Tencent QQ to many students.[12] During the six years after his graduation, he participated in the Master's Program Admissions Examination many times but always failed. In addition, during those years he had changed jobs more than ten times.[13]
According to a survey conducted by Caixin Online, Huang Yichuan's parents divorced when he was a child. His childhood home was in a building designed for the family of local civil servants in Suining County. Additionally, his grandmother, Wu, was found to have had schizophrenia for decades. In 2012 and 2013, Huang Yichuan failed the Postgraduate Admission Test twice and repeatedly failed to find a job, but he still hid the truth from his family and friends, claiming that he had a high income and perfect life. During the Spring Festival before the Pubei Knife Murders, Huang's mother thought that her son was more withdrawn and irritable, and some distant relatives thought that he may have inherited his grandmother's schizophrenia. In the year before the murders, Huang Yichuan traveled to Xiamen, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and other cities, where he visited many kindergartens and primary schools, planning to commit the murders. A month before the Pubei murders, Huang Yichuan took the train from Guangzhou to Shanghai, spending most of his time at a youth hostel in the Pudong New Area. A few days before the incident, he heard on the radio that the Shanghai World Foreign Language Primary School was going to hold a graduation ceremony, so he determined to commit the murders on students from that school.[2]
Criminal proceedings
edit| Trial of Huang Yichuan | |
|---|---|
| Court | The First Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai |
| Started | December 6, 2018 |
| Decided | May 23, 2019 |
| Case history | |
| Appealed to | Shanghai Senior People's Court |
| Subsequent actions | Appeal opened on August 30, 2019 and was rejected on December 30, 2019. Execution was carried out on December 30, 2019 |
| Case opinions | |
| Sentence award for intentional homicide; Death, as well as deprivation of political rights for life | |
On June 28, 2018, the first branch of the Shanghai Municipal People's Procuratorate and the Xuhui District procuratorate appointed prosecutors to intervene in the case to guide the investigation and evidence collection.[14] On June 29, the Xuhui District Procuratorate approved the arrest according to the law.[11] On August 14, the first branch of the Shanghai Municipal People's Procuratorate initiated a public prosecution against Huang Yichuan for intentional murder to the First Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai.[15] On December 6, the case was heard in a court session of the First Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai, attended by representatives of the National People's Congress, representatives of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress, the victims' families, and more than 50 other people. After the judicial identification, Huang Yichuan was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and as a result, held limited criminal responsibility. During the trial, the procuratorate recommended the court to punish him according to the provisions of the third paragraph of Article 18 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China.[note 2] However, the court also considered that his motive for killing was particularly sinister, the crime had been planned for a long time, and the killing method was particularly brutal.[1]
At 10:00 a.m. on May 23, 2019, the First Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai issued the first judgment on the case. The defendant Huang Yichuan was sentenced to death for intentional homicide, and he was sentenced to be deprived of political rights for life. In the judgment, the First Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai pointed out that Huang Yichuan decided to kill primary school students in order to vent his anger because he "thought he was being bullied and hurt by others." He had premeditated and prepared serious violence against innocent children, with despicable motives and cruel means. Although Huang Yichuan has schizophrenia and, therefore, had limited criminal responsibility, his crime was extremely serious, and the court decided that his mental illness did not affect his ability to control his behavior in this case.[5] After the sentence, the defendant did not appeal in court.[17] According to a reporter, the sentencing on the morning of May 23 lasted only about half an hour, and the defendant appeared very calm.[18][19]
Later, Huang formally made an appeal. On August 30, 2019, the second instance of the case opened for trial. In the second trial, Huang Yichuan argued that he did not plan to kill people in advance, and that he was committing homicide in a state of insanity. However, the procuratorial organ believed that the facts of Huang Yichuan's homicide were clear, the applicable law was correct, and the trial procedure was legal, meaning that his sentence was appropriate. Therefore, it was suggested that the court of second instance should reject the appeal and maintain its original judgment. At 12 a.m. of that day, the trial of second instance came to a close.[20] On December 30, 2019, the Shanghai Senior People's Court held a court session to make a public judgment on the appeal case, and they ruled to reject the appeal and uphold the original judgment that Huang Yichuan was sentenced to death and deprived of his political rights for life.[21] On December 3, 2020, Huang Yichuan was executed.[7]
References
editNotes
edit- ^ a b The school's two campuses are both in Kangjian New Village Subdistrict, Xuhui District. They are not far from each other; the east campus is on Pubei Road, and the west campus is on Guilin West Road. The victims were students at the east campus, but the murders took place closer to the west campus.[2]
- ^ Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, article 18, paragraph 3: "A mentally ill person who commits a crime at a time when he has not yet completely lost his ability to recognize or control his own conduct shall bear criminal responsibility but he may be given a lesser or a mitigated punishment."[16]
Citations
edit- ^ a b c 林中明 (2018-12-06). "上海浦北路持刀杀人案一审:认定被告人患有精神分裂症". Justice Network. 檢察日報社. Archived from the original on 2019-09-12. Retrieved 2018-12-06.
- ^ a b 黄姝伦; 冷澄; 肖罗娜; 何治民; 苏慧莹; 张钰杰; 郑一铭 (2018-12-02). "上海砍杀小学生凶犯一审死刑 黄一川走向深渊之路". 财新网. Archived from the original on 2019-09-12. Retrieved 2019-05-28.(subscription required)
- ^ a b c d 鄔林樺 (2018-06-28). "上海一男子持刀砍向三学生一家长致两死两伤". 上观新闻. Archived from the original on 2018-07-04. Retrieved 2018-06-30.
- ^ 李姝徵 (2018-06-29). "上海持刀杀人案犯罪嫌疑人黄一川被批捕". 中新网. China News Service. Archived from the original on 2018-06-30. Retrieved 2018-06-30.
- ^ a b c 陈伊萍. ""浦北路杀害小学生案"一审宣判！凶手黄一川被判处死刑". 澎湃新闻. Archived from the original on 2019-05-23. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
- ^ 李菁 (2019-12-30). "浦北路杀害小学生案终审宣判：驳回黄一川上诉，维持死刑判决". 澎湃新闻. Archived from the original on 2019-12-30. Retrieved 2019-12-30.
- ^ a b "上海浦北路杀害小学生案罪犯黄一川被执行死刑". 封面新闻. 2020-12-03. Retrieved 2020-12-03.
- ^ wang, yi (2022-06-28). "上海浦北路持刀杀人案回顾：凶手因生活不如意，竟选择报复社会！" [Shanghai Pubei Road knife murder case review: the murderer because life is not as satisfactory, but chose to revenge society!]. www.163.com. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
接警后警方立即赶往现场，在群众的配合下将犯罪嫌疑人黄某当场抓获，同时将4名伤者迅速送医，之后2名受伤男童经抢救无效死亡，另1名受伤男童和学生家长无生命危险。
- ^ a b c d 李涛 (2018-06-29). "男子因生活无着报复社会 在沪一小学门口持刀行凶". 北京青年报. Archived from the original on 2018-06-29. Retrieved 2018-06-30.
- ^ a b 潘家锟; 张彤 (2018-06-28). "上海一小学门口男子砍人致2死2伤 警方称嫌疑人系报复社会". 新京報. Retrieved 2018-06-30.
- ^ a b c 李姝徵 (2018-06-29). "上海持刀杀人案犯罪嫌疑人黄一川被批捕". 中新网. China News Service. Archived from the original on 2018-06-30. Retrieved 2018-06-30.
- ^ 赵志远; 卢海燕 (2018-06-28). "有人指认上海砍人男子是其大学同学：大学时有点反社会的感觉". 新京報. Archived from the original on 2018-06-30. Retrieved 2018-06-30.
- ^ 沃澜 (2018-07-01). ""6•28"浦北路持刀杀人案——这种个体偶发恶性事件之后，我们该怎么做？". 上观新闻 (in Chinese (China)). 解放日报社. Archived from the original on 2019-09-12. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
- ^ 林中明 (2018-06-28). "上海检察机关提前介入一起持刀砍人案". 檢察日報. Archived from the original on 2018-06-30. Retrieved 2018-06-30.
- ^ 上海市人民检察院 (2018-08-14). "上海市检察一分院依法对"6·28"浦北路持刀杀人案提起公诉". 上海市人民检察院. Archived from the original on 2018-08-14. Retrieved 2018-08-14.
- ^ "Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China (2017 Amendment PKULAW Version)". www.lawinfochina.com. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
- ^ 俞金旻; 卢海燕 (2019-05-23). "上海浦北路杀害小学生案庭审视频曝光 被告人当庭未上诉". 新京报网站. 新京报社. Archived from the original on 2019-09-12. Retrieved 2019-05-28.
- ^ 王利民 (2019-05-24). "上海杀害小学生案一审 黄一川犯故意杀人罪被判死刑". 华商报. 华商报社. Archived from the original on 2019-05-24. Retrieved 2019-05-28.
- ^ 葛明宁 (2019-05-23). "上海砍杀小学生凶犯一审获死刑 精神疾病无涉量刑". 财新网. Archived from the original on 2019-05-24. Retrieved 2019-05-28.
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