37 dead after rampage by sacked policeman who later killed himself
Thirty-seven people were killed, including 22 children, by a disgraced former policeman with a gun and a knife who barged into a child development centre in Nong Bua Lam Phu province on Thursday afternoon police said.
Another 10 were injured in the attack by Panya Khamrab, a former police corporal who had been discharged from the force for drug abuse, national police chief Pol Gen Damrongsak Kittiprapas said.
The death toll includes the killer, who took his own life after killing his wife and their 3-year-old son.
According to police, 22 of those killed in the rampage at the centre were children, after former Pol Sgt Panya Khamrab burst into the childcare facility operated by the Uthai Sawan tambon administrative organisation in Na Klang district.
At least another 10 were injured, six of them seriously, police said.
The shooting at the childcare facility operated by the Uthai Sawan tambon administrative organisation in Na Klang district began around 12.10pm.
The gunman’s exact motive remains a mystery. Police said Panya, 34, had been expelled from the force on June 15 for possession of methamphetamine pills. The move followed his arrest on Jan 20, when he reportedly confessed to the charges.
Panya fled the scene in his pickup truck after the carnage. He later shot himself, his wife and child inside his house while surrounded by police.
Deputy national police chief Pol Gen Torsak Sukwimol said the mother of the gunman had told him her son had gone to court to attend a hearing on his drug case on Thursday morning.
After leaving the court, he appeared stressed out, took some drugs and started to feel paranoid, Pol Gen Torsak quoted the mother as saying.
The attacker subsequently went to the childcare centre where he appeared to become agitated when he could not find his child. He opened fire on some staff having lunch outside the centre, killing four of them, and then went inside where he fired more shots. The attacker reportedly had a SIG Sauer P365 pistol and a meat cleaver. Most of the children were sleeping and many of them were killed with the knife.
The attacker also stabbed a teacher who was eight months pregnant, a teacher at the centre told Khom Chad Luek TV.
According to police, after the shooting the gunman drove his pickup to his home in Na Wan district five kilometres away, running into other people’s vehicles along the way.
Na Klang police posted a Facebook message that the Nong Bua Lam Phu Hospital urgently needed blood donations for the people wounded by the gunman.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-Cha ordered the national police chief to “fast-track an investigation” and said he would travel to the scene of the attack on Friday.
“This should not happen. This absolutely should not happen,” Gen Prayut told reporters
“I am extremely sorry for those who were injured and lost (their loved ones),” he said in a Facebook post.
Pol Gen Damrongsak said the pistol used in the attack had been purchased legally and was a privately owned weapon, not police property.
Local gun laws and the required background checks are quite strict. Nonetheless, the estimated total number of guns held, legally and illegally, by civilians in Thailand was 10.3 million in 2017, or one for about every seven citizens. Of those, about 4 million were illegal.
Thursday’s rampage was the worst mass shooting in the country since a soldier opened fire at the Terminal 21 shopping mall and other locations in Nakhon Ratchasima on Feb 8, 2020. He killed 29 people and wounded 58 others before being shot dead by police 18 hours after the incident began.
That incident, linked to a debt dispute between gunman Jakrapanth Thomma and a senior officer, triggered public anger against the military.
The soldier was able to steal assault rifles from an army depot before embarking on his killing spree, posting live updates on social media as he did so.
The gun used in Thursday’s attack had been acquired legally, police said.
Local gun laws and the required background checks are quite strict. Nonetheless, the estimated total number of guns held, legally and illegally, by civilians in Thailand was 10.3 million in 2017, or one for about every seven citizens. Of those, about 4 million were illegal.