Thai soldier kills 20 in online rampage
An airport-themed shopping centre filled with Lego sculptures, a merry-go-round and huge replicas of landmarks from around the world became a shooting gallery yesterday as a Thai soldier opened fire during the mid-afternoon rush. Officials say at least 20 people were killed and 31 injured.
A Thai defence ministry spokesman said Sergeant Jakrapanth Thomma was behind the attack at the Terminal 21 mall in Nakhon Ratchasima, a hub for Thailand’s relatively poorer and rural north-eastern region. Officials said he was angry over a land dispute.
Shortly before midnight, police announced they had secured the entire mall, but were still searching for the shooter. Officials said there were no more bodies left inside, but added: “We don’t know whether there are any additional injuries or deaths or not.”
It was the country’s second mass shooting in a month. Police officers said the man took weapons from his base and drove to the shopping centre, shooting as he went. Thai Rath television, which aired security camera footage showing a man with what appeared to be an assault rifle, said the incident began at about 3.30pm.
Video taken outside the mall showed people diving for cover as shots rang out.
One woman, Nattaya Nganiem, and her family had just finished eating and were driving away when she heard gunfire. “First I saw a woman run out from the mall hysterically,” said Nattaya. “Then a motorcycle rider in front of her just ran and left his motorcycle there.”
Officials said a doctor was shot while helping an injured person. A police officer said the soldier initially killed another soldier and a woman, and wounded a third person.
The gunman posted updates to his Facebook page during the rampage. “No one can escape death,” read one post. Another asked: “Should I give up?” In a later post, he wrote: “I have stopped already.”
Jakrapanth’s profile picture shows him in a mask and dressed in military-style fatigues and armed with a pistol. The background image is of a handgun and bullets.
In a photo circulated on social media that appeared to be taken from his Facebook page, the gunman can be seen wearing a green camouflaged military helmet while a fireball and black smoke rage behind him. The Facebook page was made inaccessible after the shooting began.
The shooter could scarcely have chosen a more target-rich environment in which to vent his rage. The multi-level glass and steel mall is designed to resemble an airport terminal, complete with a mock control tower and departure gates. A large model passenger jet dangles from wires beside one of the main escalators.
Each of its seven retail floors is decorated to represent a different country. A giant replica of the Eiffel Tower soars to the ceiling, while a model of Big Ben dominates another area, and a massive model of the Golden Gate Bridge spans an open courtyard. A two-storey golden Oscar statue towers over a food court.
Police successfully evacuated more than 100 people from the mall, where they had been trapped for hours.
Gun violence is not unheard of in Thailand. Firearms can be obtained legally, and many Thais own guns. Mass shootings are rare, though there are occasional gun battles in the south of the country, where authorities have for years battled a separatist insurgency.
The incident comes just a month after another highprofile mall shooting, in the central Thai city of Lopburi. In that case, a masked gunman carrying a handgun with a silencer killed three people, including a two-year-old boy, and wounded four others as he robbed a jewelry store. A suspect, a school director, was arrested less than two weeks later and reportedly confessed, saying he did not mean to shoot anyone.
Nakhon Ratchasima is one of the biggest cities in north-eastern Thailand, a rice-growing area and one of the poorest regions in the country of 69 million.