Mall targeted in Thailand shooting
Thai commandos escort people out of a mall Saturday in Nakhon Ratchasima where a soldier opened fire, killing at least 21 people, officials said. Authorities said the soldier was angry over a land dispute and had earlier killed another soldier and a woman. Police said the mall was secured and the gunman was later killed. More photos at arkansasonline.com/29thailand/.
NAKHON RATCHASIMA, Thailand — Thai officials said a soldier who went on a shooting rampage and killed 26 people and injured 57 others has been shot dead inside a mall in northeastern Thailand.
Officials said the soldier angry over a financial dispute first killed two people and then went on a rampage Saturday, shooting as he drove to a busy mall where shoppers fled in terror.
Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Kongcheep Tantrawanich said Sgt. Jakrapanth Thomma was behind the attack at Terminal 21 Korat mall in Nakhon Ratchasima, a hub for Thailand’s relatively poorer and rural northeastern region.
Shortly before midnight, police announced that they had secured the aboveground portion of the mall, but were still searching for the shooter. About 16 hours later, officials held a news conference outside the mall to announce the gunman was fatally shot.
The officials did not release any details.
The incident in Korat took place just a month after another mall shooting, in the central Thai city of Lopburi. In that case, a masked man carrying a handgun with a silencer killed three people, including a 2-yearold 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.
City and neighborhood police officers, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to release information, said Thomma took one or more guns from his base and drove to Terminal 21 Korat mall, shooting as he went. Thai Rath television aired security camera footage showing a man with what appeared to be an assault rifle.
Video taken outside the mall showed people diving for cover as shots rang out around midafternoon Saturday. Many were killed outside the mall, some in cars, others while walking.
A police officer contacted by phone in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima said the soldier initially killed another soldier and a woman, and wounded a third person, apparently over a land dispute. Nakhon Ratchasima is also known as Korat.
Defense Ministry spokesman Kongcheep told Thai media outlets that the first person killed was the commanding officer of the 22nd Ammunition Battalion, in which the shooting suspect also served. He said the gunman had fired at others at his base and took guns and ammunition before fleeing in an army Humvee that he drove to the mall.
The man believed to be the gunman appears to have 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 camouflage military helmet while a fireball and black smoke rage behind him. The Facebook page was made inaccessible after the shooting began.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from the mall in small batches by police even as the gunman was being sought.
Nakhon Ratchasima is about 155 miles northeast of the Thai capital, Bangkok.
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 gunfights in the far south of the country, where authorities have for years battled a long-running separatist insurgency.