Children attacked by man with knife
A man targets children celebrating at a 3-year-old’s birthday party during a stabbing spree in Idaho that wounds nine people, five of whom are children.
A man targeted children attending a 3-year-old’s birthday party during a stabbing spree that wounded nine people at an apartment complex in Boise, Idaho, on Saturday night, police said.
The man, identified as Timmy Kinner, 30, had returned to the complex, Wylie Street Station Apartments, around 8:45 p.m. Saturday, a day after he was asked to leave, William Bones, the police chief in Boise, said Sunday.
Kinner began attacking the children with a knife, said Bones, who was visibly emotional as he described a scene of victims scattered across the complex, in the street and on the walkway.
Among the victims, he said, were the 3-year-old who was celebrating her birthday, two 4year-olds, a 6-year-old, an 8year-old and a 12-year-old. The three other victims were adults who tried to intervene. Four victims received life-threatening injuries.
“This was an attack against those who are most vulnerable, our children,” Bones said. “It’s untenable, it’s unconscionable. It’s pure evil in my mind.”
Kinner has not cooperated with officials so the motive of his attack remained unclear, but the victims seem to have been targeted based on where they lived.
Julianne Donnelly Tzul, executive director of the International Rescue Committee in Boise, a humanitarian organization, said the victims were refugees from Syria, Iraq and Ethiopia. The immediate reaction of the refugee community at the complex was fear and horror, Tzul said.
Kinner, who is not a refugee, has an extensive criminal history spanning multiple states, including a prison sentence in Kentucky, Bones said, without elaboration.
A resident of the complex allowed Kinner, who is from Los Angeles, to stay at her apartment after he said he needed a place to go, Bones said.