6 police officers slain in Shanghai

A man stormed into a police building Tuesday and fatally stabbed six officers, Shanghai police said. Several officers were injured.

A suspect was arrested and initially described on the Shanghai police website as a 28-year-old unemployed man from Beijing who took revenge against authorities because he was being investigated for stealing bicycles.

However, this information was later deleted from the site.

A Shanghai Public Security Bureau spokesman who would not give his name said today that the attack was carried out by one person. On Tuesday, a source in the city’s legal supervision department, as well as unconfirmed reports online, said there were four attackers.

The legal source said the incident, which took place in a Zhabei District building that houses police and other legal offices, may have been related to the Letters and Visits Bureau, which handles citizen complaints.

Shanghai is a city of 20 million people with its share of thefts and petty crimes, but such violent attacks are rare.

The official New China News Agency, citing police sources, said the suspect, surnamed Yang, stabbed a security guard outside the building at 9:40 a.m., then charged inside and attacked nine officers with a knife.

Five police officers were killed and a sixth later died of his injuries. The others did not sustain life-threatening injuries, the Public Security spokesman said.

Some of the injured had chest wounds and others had bloodied faces.

“Their bodies were soaked with blood and their faces were pale,” said one witness quoted by the news agency. “The scene was too horrible to watch.”