Govt vows thorough response to attacks
* Source: Global Times
* [03:04 May 14 2010]
* Comments
Two police officers stand guard outside a junior high school Tuesday in Changsha, Hunan Province. Security has been tightened at schools across the country after several deadly attacks on students. Photo: CFP
By Ji Beibei
The government intends to address the root causes of the recent deadly attacks against students and tighten security to ensure a safer environment for children and the public.
"We are deeply sorry for the victims' families," Premier Wen Jiabao told reporters Tuesday, a day after a deadly attack in Shaanxi Province.
"In addition to stringent security measures, we have to pay more attention to the root causes that led to the problem, solving social disputes at the grass-roots level. And we are working on it," Wen said.
Meng Jianzhu, the minister of public security, also demanded that local authorities improve communication with the public and asked them to address the legitimate and reasonable appeals of disadvantaged people to pacify social conflicts and disputes.
Meng made the remarks at an emergency nationwide teleconference held Wednesday in response to the latest attack.
The attack at a kindergarten on Wednesday left seven kids and two women dead and 11 injured in a village in Shaanxi. The suspect, Wu Huanming, committed suicide after the cleaver attack.
The public security and education ministries held the meeting, demanding local authorities upgrade security. Meng said that police should cooperate with education authorities to rigorously search for security risks around schools.
And local authorities across the country are exploring ways to beef up security around schools, especially kindergartens and primary schools.
In Beijing, over 2,000 security personnel, including police, were dispatched to patrol kindergartens, primary schools and surrounding areas, China News Service said Tuesday.
In Changsha, Hunan Province, residents now see police carrying guns.
Schools in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, began issuing electronic pass cards to students, which could reportedly dispatch messages to parents informing them of the arrival and departure of their kids.
On March 23, a man named Zheng Minsheng in Nanping, Fujian Province, charged into a primary school and hacked nine kids to death and wounded four. The 43-year-old man was reportedly a former doctor with mental health problems.
On April 28, the day Zheng was executed, another attack happened in which a 33-year-old former teacher broke into a primary school in Leizhou, Guangdong Province, wounding 15 students and a teacher.
The following day, a 47-year-old jobless man wounded 32 in Taixing, Jiangsu Province, with a knife. Hours later on April 30, a farmer in Weifang, Shandong Province, reportedly attacked elementary students with a hammer, wounding five kids before burning himself to death.
In addition to a stronger police presence around schools, some local authorities carried out more stringent screening of people with mental health problems.
Police in Henan Province demanded the screening of mentally ill residents Tuesday and those found ill and considered dangerous will be sent to treatment centers.
The government in Fujian Province Tuesday launched a full-scale screen and risk assessment program. Residents with mental problems will be held until corresponding treatments are done.
It appears that the heightened security is working.
Security guards at a children's entertainment complex in Zhejiang Province inter-cepted an unidentified woman who tried to broke into the facility with a rusty knife at 11 am Tuesday. No casualties were reported, local Metro Express said.