China School Attacker Gets Death

The man who attacked a Chinese school in April, wounding 29 students and three kindergarten teachers, has been sentenced to death for attempted murder by a court in Jiangsu province. Xu Yuyuan, 47 years old, was reportedly suicidal and suffering from depression, and said he was expressing his anger at society. Xu appealed the sentence because no one was killed in the assault. There have been five such school attacks in China in the last two months—a man broke into a preschool with a cleaver Wednesday and killed seven kids and two adults. (The first school attacker, Zheng Minsheng, has already been executed for his killing of eight children with a knife.) China has boosted school security in the wake of the attacks, which have highlighted the country’s problem with neglected mentally ill people, though the state-controlled press has avoided the discussion of the incidents’ underlying issues. The public-security minister promised any further attacks of this sort would be prosecuted “without mercy.”