TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwanese authorities said Saturday the suspect who killed three people and injured 11 others in knife and smoke-grenade attacks in the island’s capital had planned the assaults and set fires at other locations earlier in the day.
The suspect, identified as a 27-year-old man named Chang Wen, fell to his death from a department store building in Taipei after the attack on Friday.
The assaults shocked Taiwan, where violent crime is rare, prompting authorities to step up security at crowded spots and big events, including its New Year's Eve celebration that usually attracts many locals and tourists to an outdoor countdown.
Chang Jung-Hsin, director-general of the National Police Agency, said the suspect began a series of attacks at 3:40 p.m. local time, first setting fire to roads and causing damage to cars and motorbikes. He also set fire to where he lived.
The suspect later threw smoke grenades near two exits of the Taipei Main metro station and used a knife to fatally wound a person, Chang said. After the attack, the suspect took an underground path to return to the hotel where he was staying. Then he threw more smoke grenades and used his knife to kill another person outside the Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store, the official said.
He also fatally wounded another person on the fourth floor of the department store building before he jumped from a male bathroom on the fifth floor to his death, Chang said.
The official said the smoke grenades the assailant used could be purchased online and that the suspect visited the sites before the attack.
"The suspect planned an indiscriminate attack. He acted according to his plan," Chang said, adding the initial investigation did not find that the suspect acted with anyone else.
Authorities were still investigating his motive. Chang said the suspect had voluntarily served in the military but was fired for drunk driving. The suspect was wanted from July after failing to report to military service, he added.
"The suspect hasn't contacted his family for more than two years," Chang said. "They said the suspect has been interested in guns and weapons since he was young."
Police said they recovered some “lethal weapons” in both the suspect’s rental home in Taipei and the hotel room where he had stayed for three nights near Zhongshan.
Video footage aired on local television networks showed the suspect, who was wearing a gas mask and clad in black, dropping at least two smoke grenades at the Taipei Main metro station. He was later seen near Eslite and entering the department store while attacking passersby.
Six injured people were still in the hospital. Two were being treated in intensive care units, but their conditions were stable after surgeries, authorities said.
After receiving briefings from officials, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te called for a thorough investigation into the incident, looking into the suspect's background, motives, financial resources and whether he received help from others.
Man tried to intervene before fatal stabbing
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an told local media that a 57-year-old man tried to stop the suspect but was fatally wounded. National Taiwan University Hospital told the news agency that the fatal wound was “a penetrating injury about five centimeters in length caused by a sharp object that reached from the right lung to the left atrium.”
Another man died after he was attacked near the department store, according to EBC News.
A female victim told EBC that she was hit by the suspect outside the department store when she was waiting for her daughter for a dinner appointment.
“It did not feel like a slash — it felt more like being hit,” she said. “Then it really hurt.”
When she turned around, she said she saw “people lying on the ground and needing first aid because they were bleeding.”
